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9 







TWO 

DEAD 

MEN 


BORZOI MYSTERY STORIES 

THE LOUDWATER MYSTERY 
By Edgar Jepson 

THE CASE AND THE GIRL 
By Randall Parrish 

THE WHISPERING DEAD 
By Alfred Ganachilly 

By J. S. Fletcher : 

THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER 
THE TALLEYRAND MAXIM 
THE HERAPATH PROPERTY 
SCARHAVEN KEEP 

THE RAYNER-SLADE AMALGAMATION 
RAVEN SDENE COURT \Jn Preparation ] 

A descriptive circular of all Mr. Fletcher's 
mystery stories will be mailed upon request. 


TWO DEAD MEN 


TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH OF 

JENS ANKER 

BY FRITHJOF TOKSVIG A 




1)1 
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ALFRED • A • KNOPF mcmxxh 

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NEW YORK 


COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. 

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Published, May, 1922 

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMERICA 


J 

m 23 1922 
©CIA661751 



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TWO 

DEAD 

MEN 



PROLOGUE 


A BOUT 9 o’clock one spring evening, 
Thorvald Hansen, a small humpbacked 
cobbler, was putting a room in order at 
the back of his basement shop in Saxo street. 
The window was covered by an old, ragged rug 
heavy with dirt. It looked up into a funnel of a 
court, one of a whole line of courts stretching up 
to Dannebrog street. 

A lamp with a chipped shade burned on the 
bare pine table. Two crippled chairs with ragged 
cloth seats were placed beside it. An unmade bed 
was visible in the rear of the room, a rusty iron 
skeleton filled with a heap of filthy rags. The 
cobbler’s father, the “Old One,” as they called 
him, had flung himself upon it and was snoring 
off the effects of a recent drinking bout. Ordi- 
narily he occupied a room up in the garret. 

The air in the room was close and oppressive, 
due partly to the Old One’s exhalations, and 
partly to the tobacco in the cobbler’s well-chewed 

[ 7 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
briar-pipe. A framed motto over the bed ex- 
pressed the pious wish that God would hold His 
Hand over this Home. 

The cobbler had now swept the dust and dirt 
into the corners and brushed the bread crumbs 
off the table. He put the broom away outside in 
the shop. 

His father was tossing in an uneasy sleep — and 
snored. The cobbler lounged over to him and 
suddenly clapped a hand on his shoulder and be- 
gan shaking him: 

“They may be here any minute now.” 

The old man half woke and wrenched himself 
away. 

“Let me alone, d’ye hear — ” 

“No, I’ll be damned if I will — ” and the son 
gripped him again. 

“Then give me just a little drop — ” begged the 
old man, and raised himself on his elbow, “I am 
so thirsty.” 

The cobbler did not loose his hold. But an evil 
smile slipt over his pallid, fatty countenance un- 
der the parted coal black hair. His eyes became 
fixed. His brutal jaw with its blue-black stubble 
tightened like a muscle. 

“Certainly, my dear sir, — anything you like — 
That’s just what I’m here for, you know.” 

[ 8 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

He grinned sarcastically, evilly. But there was 
a furious strength in his hands as with a sudden 
snatch at the old man’s shoulder, he tore him out 
of bed: 

“Get out of that!” 

Hansen straightened the rags that served as 
bedclothes. The Old One got up laboriously, 
dragged himself over to one of the chairs and 
slumped down on it, slapped his arms on the table, 
and hid his face in his hands. 

“Don’t tip over that lamp,” barked the cobbler 
as he knocked his pipe out on the stove over by 
the bed and filled it anew. The Old One sat sway- 
ing and groaning. The cobbler grinned ma- 
liciously. 

“There is always a worm in the core, eh?” 

The Old One suddenly took his hands away 
from his face, blinked at the light and looked 
about. First recognizingly, then surprised, then 
disapprovingly. 

“Why is everything tidied up so this evening?” 

“Because we are going to have company,” — 
grinned his offspring. 

Slowly the old man remembered. 

“Ah, that is true! Elly and her new intended 
are coming.” 

“‘Intended!’” the cobbler leered. “It won’t 

[ 9 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
last long, I’ll bet. She’s a flighty one, is Elly. 
She likes variety. He’s a queer bird, anyway.” 

“A genius they say,” grunted the old man. 

“Genius — yes, so she thinks. He’s only a 
printer, he is, and he hasn’t even got a job. It’ll 
be hard going if they’re going to live by his trade.” 

The Old One nodded and cleared his throat. 

“Right you are, m’boy! Right you are — a-ah, 
my throat! — If you only — ” 

He looked beseechingly at his son who sat on 
the edge of the bed. 

“Hey?” asked that worthy crossly. 

“ — could spare me a little drop — ” 

“What are you whining for now?” demanded the 
cobbler with a leer even more evil, if possible, 
than before. 

“You’ll not get a drop to drink!” 

A sudden rage seized the old man. He banged 
the table with his fist and threateningly en- 
deavoured to get up, but could only wave his arms 
wildly. 

“Do you know whom you are talking to?” he 
gasped. “What, rogue — a man with whom His 
Majes — ” 

“Yes, yes, I know very well that His Majesty 
shook hands with you,” interrupted his son. “I 
know the whole lesson. But even if the Pope him- 
[ 10 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
self had kissed you, you wouldn’t get another drop. 
I don’t want you any more drunk than you are 
already. D’ye see?” 

He had been rapping his pipe on the edge of 
the bed to keep time to his words. . . . The Old 
One had completely missed his heroic oration. 
He simply sat and stared dully at the table. 

“I am an old man, whom His Majesty — ” he 
whimpered. 

The cobbler rose and bent threateningly over 
him. 

“What are you muttering about?” he rasped. 

Just then they heard a noise at the door to the 
shop. They both froze and listened. Then came 
a series of knocks. 

The cobbler breathed easier. 

“It’s Elly’s knock,” he said and gave his father 
a push in the ribs. “Straighten up now a bit. 
D’ye hear?” 

The Old One obeyed and the cobbler went into 
the dark shop. Before he opened the door he 
asked : 

“Who’s there?” 

“It’s me, Elly,” he heard his sister say, “and my 
friend.” 

Then Thorvald Hansen undid the door. 

“God’s peace and welcome,” he bleated loudly. 

[ 11 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Cut out the play acting,” said Elly. “Niel- 
sen knows you from hearsay. Yes, he’s here, 
too.” 

Nielsen greeted him and went with Elly and the 
cobbler into the back room. 

“The Salvation Army often have people out here 
in the street,” grinned the cobbler to his sister, 
“and souls must be saved. That is why I laid it 
on a bit thick.” 

Nielsen ignored the cobbler’s outstretched hand. 

Thorvald Hansen regarded him covertly. His 
appearance was anything but prepossessing. He 
was tall, slender but broad-shouldered. His thick 
brown hair was uncombed, and he wore eye-glasses 
that seemed rooted to his nose but that did not in 
the least obscure the glances from his keen eyes. 
He was vilely unshaven, and his brutal mouth was 
extremely disfigured by several long, yellow front 
teeth which hung tusk-like over his lower lip. 

And as for his clothes — the cobbler was really 
almost ashamed on his sister’s account, when he 
saw the dirty paper collar and dickey, the long 
shabby Prince Albert, the greasy vest and the 
baggy and wrinkled blue trousers badly frayed at 
the bottom. 

Not to speak of cuffs, which were missing. 

[ 12 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
His boots were the only decent thing about him, 
and even they were patched. And his tie, too, was 
Worn and spoke of better days. 

And Elly, who could play around with counts 
if she wished. That one could sink so low! And 
worse yet, she was in love with him. 

“Nielsen has brought some cognac along,” said 
Elly and threw her hat and coat on the bed. 

The cobbler smiled oilily and offered Nielsen 
one of the lame chairs. 

“I will fetch some glasses,” he promised and 
disappeared in the kitchen. 

“Nielsen has brought two bottles so we had 
better start in,” said Elly. 

The Old One’s eyes gleamed a bit, bleared 
though they were. 

“A little night-cap,” he mumbled feelingly and 
turned suddenly toward the daughter, and ges- 
tured majestically with his hand. 

“Your father is proud of you,” he said. 

“Nonsense,” smiled Elly. She was junoesque, 
golden-haired, and fresh as if she had lived a life 
among sunlight and flowers. 

The cobbler returned with three glasses. What 
was just right for three, was too little for four. 
Elly poured her portion into a cup. 

[ 13 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Welcome, brother-in-law,” toasted the cobbler, 
“and good luck to it.” 

“Luck to it,” seconded the Old One. 

They drank. Nielsen refilled the empty glasses. 

“Is this all there is to the place,” he asked and 
his keen glances darted around the room and into 
the darkened store. 

“There is a little kitchen outside,” and the cob- 
bler indicated it with a gesture that he sought to 
make superior. Nielsen irritated him. There 
was something curt, almost commanding about 
him. 

“Let me see this kitchen,” said the printer. 
The cobbler emptied his glass, and got up and 
opened the door to the kitchen. 

“This is all there is of it,” he said. 

The room was small and pitch dark. 

Nielson lit a match and looked about. There 
was a little window on the court, thick with dust 
and dirt. He tried the door to the kitchen stairs. 
It was locked. 

“Is it sound proof?” he asked and pointed to 
the ceiling. 

“As the grave,” affirmed Hansen and added: 
“You are a careful man, brother-in-law.” 

“Yes, careful,” smiled Nielsen with a nod, “but 
not afraid, as are some others who daren’t open 

[ 14 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
the door for their own sister, for fear that it might 
be a detective.” 

“You haven’t three years behind you, brother,” 
grumbled the cobbler, “and I don’t want to do it 
again, the devil take me. It’s a real hell for my 
lungs.” The cobbler coughed. 

“Isn’t the Old One going soon?” asked Nielsen. 

“I’ll get him on his way,” promised the cobbler. 

“Let’s go in again,” said the printer. 

As they stepped into the back-room, the Old One 
stood swaying with the cognac bottle in his hand, 
and had nearly emptied it. Elly was ready to 
die with laughter at him. 

“God! how delightful he is! He drank it as if 
it was fresh milk.” 

Hansen tore the flask from his hand. 

“The old swine,” he snapped. 

“Put him on the bed,” proposed Nielsen, and ex- 
amined the shop carefully. 

The cobbler and Elly dragged the Old One over 
to the bed. 

“ — A man, with whom His Majesty has 
talked and — ” muttered the cobbler’s worthy 
father. 

Elly giggled. 

“Now he is serving that up to us again.” 

They threw him onto the bed. 

[ 15 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“What kind of a cupboard is this?” they heard 
Nielsen say out in the shop. 

The cobbler went out and opened the cupboard. 
It was empty. 

“Be so good as to look, brother-in-law,” said 
he and then slammed it demonstratively shut. 
“Either you are an amateur or else pretty damn 
careful.” 

“Suppose I were both,” said Nielsen laughing 
shortly. 

“Then I should fear,” answered the cobbler 
somewhat scornfully, “that we would not make so 
many coups together, such as you have proposed 
to me through Elly.” 

“If you are not too much of a coward, we shall 
start this very evening,” said Nielsen, “and there’s 
big money to be made.” 

They had gone into the back-room again and 
had seated themselves about the table. Elly filled 
their glasses. Now and then as she looked at 
Nielsen, there came into her eyes a gleam as of un- 
veiled and passionate love — and of anxiety. 

The cobbler looked down into his glass. 

“It is all right about the money,” he remarked, 
“and both the shoe business and the straight and 
narrow is not worth that! There’s nothing in it 
[ 16 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
— I can’t make it go that way. But I won’t get 
in again. I’ll croak if I get shut up.” 

“You won’t get shut up,” said Nielsen shortly. 
“When you work with me, you risk nothing.” 

“May I ask then, why you don’t work alone?” 
asked the cobbler suspiciously. 

Nielsen slowly emptied his glass. 

“I’ll tell you why. This work demands both 
body and soul. And I can offer the soul only.” 

The cobbler whistled in comprehensive irony. 

“You mean then, that I should face the music if 
things go wrong. Fine. All you’d have to do 
would be to lie your way out of it. Or have I 
misunderstood you?” 

Nielsen shrugged his shoulders. 

“In one way you’ve misunderstood me, in an- 
other, no. I will be the brain, and you shall be 
the hands that untie the hard knots. You’ll get 
half the swag. 

“But mark you — if you try to bunko or double- 
cross me, you’ll find it’ll go hard with you. I 
have a certain, dead-sure way for handling that 
kind of case” — Hansen rather squirmed in his 
chair, and opened his mouth as though to speak, 
but was silent. 

“But perhaps you would rather work entirely on 

[ 17 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
your own, or with your pals of the old days. It is, 
of course, a bit risky, but — ” 

The printer did not finish. He sat and watched 
Hansen with his peculiar look, that seemed to bore 
through one. 

The cobbler had always had bad luck when he 
worked alone, though a clever man in his own line, 
and he had long ago parted from his comrades. 

Therefore he said simply: “I agree.” 

Nielsen nodded curtly. 

“You are a sensible man, Hansen.” 

Over in the bed, the Old One stirred. 

“ — A man whom His Majesty — ■” he mumbled 
and began again his lusty snoring. 

“We start tonight, then?” said the cobbler and 
emptied his glass. 

“Yes, now, tonight,” replied Nielsen in a queer 
ceremonious way. His eyes met Elly’s for an in- 
stant. Her eyes fell. 

“Well, out with it,” harried the cobbler. 

Nielsen leaned whisper ingly towards him. 

“Now, get this carefully — ” 

He talked for a long time, often interrupted 
by the cobbler. Elly listened closely, and with 
deeply interested eyes. Now and then she sipped 
at her glass. 

The light from the chipped shade fell remorse- 

[ 18 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
lessly upon the three set and tense faces, so dis- 
similar, and yet so alike in criminal ecstasy. 

A short time afterward a burglary was com- 
mitted in one of Copenhagen’s best-known jewellery 
concerns, which in a month’s time was followed by 
another. 

During the summer and autumn four more rob- 
beries occurred, quite as mysterious as the first, 
evidently executed by the same criminals. The 
police were at a loss either to prevent them, or to 
find any solution when they occurred. 

Then the robberies suddenly ceased. 


[ 19 ] 


CHAPTER 1 


STORM had been raging over the city all 
afternoon and evening. 



JL JL Arne Falk sat writing. It was late. 
Suddenly the outer door-bell rang. He looked up 
from his work, glancing at the clock. It was half- 
past eleven. His house-keeper and the maid had 
gone to bed long ago. 

He laid the manuscript, some notes on criminal 
statistics, aside, and went out to open the door. 

It was Preben Miller, the author. 

“Good evening,” said Falk with a smile, “I 
thought you were terribly angry with me.” 

“Oh, because of that note you wouldn’t in- 
dorse?” said Miller, hanging up his hat and stick. 
“Bosh! A little thing like that doesn’t bother me.” 

“Thank the Lord,” sighed Falk ironically, “but 
come in where it’s warm. 9 '’ 

M(iller followed him. 

“I come, really,” he said, “to take you along 
on a slumming tour. My ‘Darkest Copenhagen’ 
lacks a chapter with the heading ‘Behind the 
Scenes in the Dance Hells,’ or something like that. 
And Figaro is wide open tonight.” 


[ 20 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk looked at him in comic despair. 

“You’re much too greedy! For the last nine 
months Fve been introducing you to all the crooks 
of Copenhagen who amount to anything. You 
know their hiding places and all their tricks. 
And now you want the dregs of the dance halls 
too! 

“Let’s put it off till another evening, old fellow. 
Let’s have a little whisky and a talk here instead. 
Why it’s snowing and storming outside, worse than 
it ever did in any self-respecting December!” 

Miller lit a cigar. 

“It stopped snowing half an hour ago,” he said. 
“The storm has let up too.” 

Falk looked out. It was moonlight with a 
crackling frost. 

“And where’s your overcoat?” he demanded, 
turning to his friend. 

“I’m toughening myself,” smiled the writer, and 
straightened his rather stooping shoulders, “and be- 
sides my winter coat is in hock somewhere. I 
have only my old one to wear, and I hate like the 
deuce to risk my reputation as the best dressed 
man in town. We all have our little weaknesses.” 

Falk put out the light. 

“You are a silly ass,” he said to Miller, pulling 
on his overcoat. “ You’re one of the best of our 

[ 21 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

myriad scribblers, and you’re as prolific as a rat — ” 

46 — and in spite ot that always broke,” con- 
tinued Miller with a sigh, and went down the stairs 
followed by Falk. 

44 And why?” asked the latter. 

44 Ask my tailor and my favourite waiter,” said 
Miller languidly. He had an odd, lazy way of 
speaking, and gave the general impression of being 
rather easy-going. 

“And your uncles,” Falk went on, “and your 
women.” 

“Suppose we stop there,” suggested Miller. 
“Anyway, you’re a good one to preach.” 

Falk ignored the insinuation. 

“Why don’t you make a good match?” he asked. 

Miller smiled, so that his gleaming white but 
false front teeth were visible. His own had been 
knocked out in a coasting accident at Dalame in 
Sweden. 

“Why? Now you are talking. Who in the 
wide world would have me?” 

“Ada Stock, for example. There are others be- 
sides myself who have been hoping that you two 
would make a match of it. She is the daughter 
of your late father’s best friend — you have known 
each other from childhood, and then, Captain 
Stock is quite wealthy — ” 

[ 22 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I, too — ■” sighed Miller, “hoped one time — 
well, you know. 

“She has, you see, become engaged today. 
Not that my heart is broken. But undeniably 
it is, what one in certain circles — which you have 
done me the honour of acquainting me with — 
would call a black eye.” 

“Whom is she engaged to?” asked Falk with 
surprise. 

“To Lange, Einar Lange.” 

“Oh, the Futurist! How did he meet the 
Stocks?” 

“Well, Ada has artistic leanings. She has 
studied under him. He told me himself about the 
engagement this very evening. I took a little run 
up to see old Saabye. Lange came just as I was 
about to leave.” 

“Isn’t Saabye his foster-father?” 

“Yes, he has been a father to him since Lange 
at seventeen entered the Academy, which he now 
so heartily detests.” 

“Wasn’t there a bit of a row between them about 
a year ago?” 

“Yes, Lange wanted to marry a girl who did 
not suit his foster-father’s taste. And Saabye isn’t 
the man to keep his opinions to himself. There 
is nothing wrong with his intellect either. 

[ 23 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“The girl had the lad going pretty strong, was 
pretty expensive, and a Vestal Virgin she certainly 
was not! Old Saabye prophesied that it would 
come to no good, and said right out that if Einar 
was bound on making himself a laughing-stock he 
was not going to do it on his money at any rate, 
etc., etc.” 

“And did Lange rage?” 

“Of course! He was young, barely thirty, and 
as temperamental as a Southerner. He told 
Saabye to go to the Devil.” 

“But he didn’t marry the girl, then?” 

“No, she didn’t really care for him anyway. 
When he couldn’t get any mpre money out of the 
old man, she gave him the gate. And Lange didn’t 
commit suicide on her account.” 

“Who was she?” asked Falk. 

“A child of the people,” smiled Miller. “Gen- 
uine Saxo street. But a remarkable woman, with 
an uncanny attractiveness to men. Large, bloom- 
ing, and blond. And with the same shining fresh 
exterior that a worm-eaten fruit can have — ” 

“You seem to know her,” smiled Falk. 

“Yes, indeed, I do. Of course, I can’t think 
of her as a wife but — ” 

“What is her name?” 

[ 24 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Elly! Elly Hansen — strictly lower-class — 
As a matter of fact, she’s behaving quite well lately, 
and I flatter myself that I am the cause of it. 

“God help me, I think she’s in love with me, old 
man.” 

“Yes, miracles still happen,” smiled Falk a 
little maliciously. 

They turned down Yesterbro’s Passage. 

“And so Lange is all fixed with Ada Stock,” con- 
tinued Falk, “and does the match suit the old 
man?” 

“Yes, he is all sunshine. Old Saabye, that is. 
Because Stock senior is probably less enthusiastic 
about it. He counts only army officers as human 
beings, and understands absolutely nothing of 
Futurism.” 

“Neither do I, thank the Lord,” interjected Falk. 

“And even if Lange,” continued Miller, “has 
talent (as he, as a matter-of-fact, is said to have! 
What young painter is not full of talent?) he 
doesn’t earn very much by it. 

“I can’t help wondering,” he remarked almost 
peevishly, “how a cool lady like Ada Stock can 
go and fall in love with an anarchistic individual 
like Lange who goes around with baggy trousers 
and no cuffs.” 


[ 25 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk smiled. 

“Do the Stocks know anything about Lange’s 
former relation to Elly Hansen?” 

“Are you mad?” Miller stared at him, as- 
tounded. “Yes, Ada, maybe, or the mother at a 
pinch! But the father! He is as prudish as an 
old maid. His ideas about I. 0. U.’s, and the 
erotic are on a par with the moral standards of a 
Ladies’ Aid Society.” 

“Isn’t he a bit stingy, too?” 

“Stingy! That’s not the word for it,” said Mil- 
ler, shaking his head in denial. 

“His wife fights a constant battle to get enough 
money to run the house. But when it comes to 
militarism, then his generosity borders on the in- 
sane. If I judge him right, Lange himself will 
have to pay for the whole outfitting, unless he 
wants machine-guns in the living room and cannon 
in the bed chamber.” 

“Maybe you can introduce him to your money- 
lenders,” laughed Falk. 

“Oh, no, I have more than use for them myself,” 
sighed Miller and a shudder passed through him. 
“Besides, — I am freezing.” 

They had reached the comer of the street where 
Preben Miller lived. 


[ 26 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Run up and put your coat on,” Falk advised 
him. “I’ll wait for you.” 

Miller reflected. Falk smiled a bit scornfully. 

“You won’t meet any of your imposing acquain- 
tances tonight.” 

Miller still hesitated: 

“I really cast it off a year ago. And the cut is 
quite out of style — oh, well, the deuce with it!” 

He unlocked the door and went in. Falk went 
back and forth in front of the house. There were 
only a few people on the street, and the moonlight 
made it seem still more deserted, the snow still 
whiter. 

He sauntered over to the other side, saw a light 
flare up in his friend’s room, and go out an instant 
afterwards. Four or five minutes passed. Then 
Miller opened the door. Falk went over to him. 
When he reached his side, the author began to 
tremble in spite of his overcoat. 

“It is the heat up in the apartment,” he said, 
“one reacts.” 

They went down Vesterbro street. 

“Do you suppose the Captain will give his con- 
sent to the engagement?” Falk continued their 
interrupted conversation. 

“He has already given it,” said Miller and lit 

[ 27 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
a cigarette. “The engagement has been officially 
announced. You’ll find it in the papers to- 
morrow, or the day after. You see, Ada has a 
wonderful way of handling the old man. She 
simply freezes him into obedience. You know, 
she’s rather frigid.” 

“Her mother has helped her, too, probably?” 

Miller shrugged his shoulders. 

“She’s very sweet, this Mrs. Stock, but she 
hasn’t a word to say about anything.” 

“It reminds me of a proverb,” said Falk, “that 
that woman is a goose who does not understand 
how to manage her husband.” 

“Yes, and the one that does not do it,” continued 
Miller, “a saint. It so happens that she is 
neither.” 

“It’s the daughter then — ■” began Falk but 
stopped short and gripped Miller by the arm. 
“Isn’t that Lange?” he asked and pointed to a 
young man who had wrenched open the door of 
No. 12, and at that very instant passed them, in 
the middle of the road, running swiftly. 

His clothes hung on him as if he had dressed 
in furious haste. His shoestrings were untied, his 
vest unbuttoned and his tie fluttered wildly. He 
was without his overcoat despite the frost. 

“Yes, that’s he,” Miller broke out, astounded, 
[28] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
and looked after him. He was already down near 
Old Kingsway. “The Lord knows what’s the mat- 
ter with him. His face was quite pale — did you 
notice it?” 

Falk nodded. 

“Does Saabye live there?” he asked, and 
pointed to No. 12. 

“Yes, and Lange was to stay there tonight on 
account of the bad weather,” explained Miller. 
“He lives away out in Hellerup, and there are no 
taxis out tonight.” 

They stopped outside the street door. Miller 
stepped back several paces, and looked up. 
Everything was dark at Saabye’s. 

“He didn’t even have time to light the hall- 
light,” substantiated Falk. 

“Let us go up,” proposed Miller. 

They went in by the front door. Falk lit the 
light. On one of the lower steps lay something 
which he bent over and picked up. He handed 
it to Miller. 

“Do you recognize this?” 

“That’s his stick-pin. He must have lost it as 
he ran down the stairs.” 

“And why such wild haste?” grunted Falk, “and 
why did he seem so excited?” 

The author shrugged his shoulders. 

[ 29 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Who knows?” 

They went up the stairs. Falk examined every 
step without, however, finding anything. 

Saabye lived on the second floor. When they 
had reached it, the hall-light went out. Falk lit 
it again. The hall door stood wide open. 

“That’s not at all like Saabye,” said Miller, as- 
tonished, and shook his head. 

Falk preceded him into the corridor. The door 
of the study was also open. They both saw the 
fire-light from the old-fashioned porcelain stove 
rest like a dull gold covering on the thick 
Smyrna carpet that reached almost to the thresh- 
old. 

“Where’s the switch?” asked Falk as he stepped 
into the room, followed by Miller. 

The latter, accustomed to the house, turned it on. 
The room in an instant lay bathed in a cosy, dark 
yellow light. A bed had been made up on the 
sofa but the bedclothes lay in fantastic disorder, 
as if Lange, who doubtless had lain there, had been 
tom from his bed or else had left it in nervous 
haste. 

“We’d better wake Saabye,” said Falk. “Some- 
thing or other has happened here. Where’s his 
bedroom?” 


[ 30 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Miller reflected a moment. 

“I am not quite sure about it,” he said, “because 
I have never been in any other room but this. But 
I think it is at the end of this corridor.” 

He opened the door to a long, carpeted hall, and 
found, after some searching, a switch there, and 
threw it on. 

“Where does this door to the left lead to?” whis- 
pered Falk. 

“Probably out to the kitchen, and to the house- 
keeper’s rooms.” 

“And what is this?” 

Falk pointed to a wire, which, quite indepen- 
dent of the lighting connection, ran along the ceil- 
ing to stop abruptly or rather disappear in the 
wall of the study. 

“I don’t know,” and Miller shook his head. 
Bending over, he picked something up: 

“Here is a knife.” 

He handed it to Falk. The blade was nicked as 
if it had been used to cut metal. Falk looked up 
and followed the mysterious wire with his eyes. 
By the door to the study — where Miller had found 
the knife, he discovered that the wire had been cut! 

Falk’s usually cheerful face became suddenly 
grave. 


[ 31 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Go out and lock the front door,” he bade softly, 
“and take the key in with you. I will wake 
Saabye in the meantime.” 

Miller disappeared in the study. Falk again 
examined the wire where it had been cut. He 
carefully assured himself of its thickness, hard- 
ness and so on. He compared the wire with the 
knife and muttered, “That is strange.” But 
finally he abandoned his reflections, and knocked on 
the door of Saabye’s room first softly, then louder 
and louder. 

No one answered. 

Then he shouted: “Hello, Mr. Saabye!” and 
pounded on the door. 

Still no answer. 

Then he opened the door. Miller had in the 
meantimje returned. Falk held him back. 

“Stay out here.” 

Miller waited and saw Falk turn on the light in 
the bedroom. An instant later he heard him utter 
a low cry of horror. He rushed in — and recoiled 
horror-stricken. 

Saabye lay murdered in his bed! With his 
throat cut from ear to ear. 

“Ring up police headquarters and get some one 
down here, preferably Jensen-Skandrup, if he is 
there.” 


[ 32 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Miller staggered through the corridor into the 
study where the telephone was. 

Falk bent over the dead man. He had been 
murdered beyond the slightest doubt. And the 
slash had been made by a sure hand. He had bled 
to death almost instantaneously. 

Falk looked inquiringly about. 

On the floor before the bureau lay Saabye’s 
pocket knife, keys, and watch. The criminal had, 
no doubt, dropped them in his haste. 

He looked at the watch. It had stopped at fif- 
teen minutes of twelve. It was now twelve o’clock. 
A quarter of an hour ago Saabye had been mur- 
dered ! 

Falk examined the watch closely. To all ap- 
pearances it had been wound for the night and had 
stopped only owing to the jar it had sustained 
when it fell. 

He heard Miller come back, and appearing to 
hesitate as he stepped into the bedroom. 

“They’ll be here in a few minutes,” he said, 
and avoided the corpse with his eyes. 

Falk smiled involuntarily. Miller had always 
talked scornfully of people who could not stand 
blood nor the sight of a corpse. 

“Here is a safe,” said his friend. 

Falk nodded. 


[ 33 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I was just about to look it over.” 

He examined it minutely. It was locked. 
Miller stood and stared at it. Falk noticed the 
sweat on his forehead, and how pale his face was. 

“I think you had better — ,” he began but stopped 
suddenly with a: “Shh!” 

Both were still. They heard a door creak out 
in the corridor leading to the bedroom. Falk tip- 
toed to the door — and stood face to face with a 
pudgy, elderly woman in negligee. 

She moaned as she saw him. Her face became 
fixed and wooden with fright. To save her life 
she could not have moved a mjuscle. 

Despite the tragedy behind him, Falk had to 
smile. His smile unlocked her terror. She 
shrieked. 

6 ‘Thieves! Thieves! Help! Help!” she shrilled, 
and was about to disappear in the room behind 
her when Falk reassuringly put his hand on her 
arm: 

“We are no thieves,” said he, “we are friends 
of your master.” 

But she screamed steadily on: “Thieves!” and 
tore her arm away: “Help, help!” 

Falk gripped her by the wrist. 

“Stop your yelling now,” he said. “You’re the 
house-keeper, aren’t you?” 

[ 34 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

She nodded wildly. Her eyes wandered irreso- 
lutely. 

“A dreadful thing has happened,” said Falk. 
Just then Miller appeared on the threshold of the 
bedroom. 

“Shut the door,” Falk said to him. Miller did 
so. 

The house-keeper glanced at the door in terror. 
Then she shut her eyes, and seemed about to faint. 
Falk supported her. 

“He is dead, my poor master is dead.” 

“How do you know that?” Falk looked at her 
sharply. 

“I had a frightful dream,” she groaned. “I 
was gathering up money. Heaps of money. In 
the mire and slush. That means misfortune. Oh, 
I knew it the minute I woke up. Misfortune on 
this house.” 

Falk tried to calm her. 

“Didn’t you hear any noise or screaming about 
a quarter of an hour ago?” he asked. 

She again shook her head. 

“Where is your bedroom?” 

“ ’Way out by the kitchen,” she stammered 
finally. 

Suddenly she remembered and burst out appre- 
hensively: “But Mr. Lange must have — ” 

[ 35 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“We met him running away from here as we 
came,” Falk interrupted. 

She stared horror-stricken at him. 

“Running away! Running away!” 

Falk nodded. 

“He did it,” she whispered suddenly and shud- 
dered. “He did it.” 

“What makes you think that?” 

“He has such a hasty temper. I’ll never forget 
one night last year when he and the master quar- 
reled. He all but struck him. I saw it myself, 
and thank God that he stayed away from here after 
that.” 

“But what makes you think that he should have 
gone so far just this very evening when he came 
to be reconciled to your master?” 

The house-keeper’s eyes still wavered from 
fright but she nodded secretively: 

“He came up here for quite another reason.” 

“Which?” 

“To borrow money of the master.” 

“And you think that your master refused? He 
wasn’t ordinarily considered a stingy man.” 

The housekeeper, Mrs. Rosenkvist, hesitated a 
little before she answered. 

“I think he did, however,” she said. “Maybe 
he asked for too large a sum.” 

[ 36 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Did your master usually keep large amounts of 
money here?” asked Falk. 

“No, he always put it in the bank the same day 
that it was paid to him. You know, he owned this 
house, and the house next door, the poor dead mas- 
ter! But today he couldn’t deposit it. He had 
a bit of a cold, and the weather was so dreadful. 
Oh, God! Oh, God!” she moaned in her fright- 
ened way again and stared fearfully at the bed- 
room door. There was a slight pause. 

“Do you know the combination for the safe?” 
Falk asked suddenly. 

She started as if he had touched an open wound. 
She could only nod affirmatively. 

“Perhaps you have put money in it for your 
master now and then?” asked Falk. She nodded 
again. 

“Do you know Lange?” 

She nodded for the third time. 

“Do you know where the keys are?” 

“Yes,” she managed to say: “The master always 
carried them in his pocket, the poor, poor — ” 

Falk opened the door to the bedroom. 

“Do me the favour,” he bade her, “of opening 
the safe for us.” 

She merely stared at him as if he were mad, 
and clutched the knob of the door she was stand- 
[ 37 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
ing by. Not for all the world would she go in 
that room. 

“Take a towel,” said Falk to Miller, “and put 
it over his face.” 

Miller went into the room. 

“Come on then,” said Falk to the house-keeper, 
“there’s nothing to be afraid of now.” 

She reluctantly let go of the door knob, and 
followed him into the bedroom. She did not look 
towards the side where the bed stood although she 
fairly tingled with fearful curiosity. 

Falk found the keys at once, and handed them to 
her: 

“Now, open the safe.” 

She obeyed mechanically. Several seconds 
passed, funereal in their silence. Then the door 
of the safe sprang open. 

“The money’s gone,” she cried, and began to sob 
hysterically. 

“Are you sure that Saabye didn’t put it in his 
pocket-book?” asked Falk. “Take a look, Miller.” 

She shook her head vigorously and sobbed : 

“I was in here myself making the bed when the 
master put it in the safe. There was about 4000 
kroner.” 

“There is only about 50 kroner in the pocket- 
book now,” asserted Miller. 

[38] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“We must search the premises,” said Falk 
firmly. “You go first,” he ordered the house- 
keeper, who still sniffling, hurried out into the 
corridor. 

Miller followed her silently. Falk put out the 
light. 

“It is the burglar alarm from the safe that has 
been cut,” he said to Miller, and pointed to the 
wire over in the corner of the corridor. “I was 
blind before or feebleminded.” 

Mrs. Rosenkvist’s two rooms and the kitchen 
were hurriedly searched. However, nothing of 
any interest appeared. It was clear that no one 
but the house-keeper had occupied them. 

“Just stay in here,” Falk proposed, “and try to 
be a little mjore calm. We can expect the police 
any moment. If your presence is needed, you 
will be sent for.” 

The house-keeper looked at him timidly. She 
was comparatively quiet, however, when they left 
her. 

“This room we haven’t searched at all,” said 
Falk as they stepped into the study. “For once, 
Mister Author, you’re on the spot of the crime. 
Use your eyes — but what is this?” 

Falk bent over and picked up a crumpled bit of 
paper. 


[ 39 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“ A ten kroner note!” he unfolded it, “and 
bloody.” 

“There’s something, too,” said Miller, and 
pointed to a couple of half-charred notes that lay 
before the stove. Evidently they had fallen out 
of the fire onto the floor. 

“If it was Lange who did this,” said Falk, 
“everything seems to indicate that either he was 
seized by a fear of being discovered or else by hor- 
ror at his deed. First he threw the bills into the 
fire, then rushed insanely away. To get away at 
all cost!” 

Falk fell suddenly on his knees: 

“A-ah, lift the lamp a little,” he commanded. 
Miller did so immediately. The carpet had a 
grey-blue ground colour. Consequently the spots 
that dotted it could be seen quite clearly. Some 
spots were yet moist. They reached from the 
wash-stand, which had been converted from a 
card table, over to the writing desk. 

Close by this the spots stopped, but Falk dis- 
covered instantly the continuation of them. 

‘‘Here we have them again,” he showed Miller 
who, deeply engrossed, followed his investigation. 
He pointed to a sheet of paper lying on the desk. 
This too was spotted: 

“And the water is bloody,” said Falk as he used 

[ 40 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
his magnifying glass, “and the shelf, too, is wet — 
and the lip of the vase here.” 

It was a Japanese vase that stood on top of one 
of the desk’s pigeon holes. Falk, lightning-like, 
plunged his hand in it, and pulled it out again. 

“Here is the instrument of murder,” he said tri- 
umphantly, and showed Miller a blood bespattered 
razor. “Since the murderer left it here, it must be 
Saabye’s own razor.” 

Miller regarded it with something closely ap- 
proaching horror. 

“I wouldn’t finger it too much,” warned Falk 
and laid it on the table. 

“You needn’t be afraid of that!” and Miller 
made a most comical grimace. 

Falk bent over the improvised wash-stand: 

“He washed his hands afterwards,” he affirmed. 
“The towel is still quite damp — and bloody.” 

He ceased his examination abruptly. “That’s 
strange,” he muttered, but went on with it almost 
instantly, “and here is blood on the edge of the 
wash basin. I wonder where — ?” 

Falk took the cover off the slop pail. “Hm! I 
thought as much, v he smiled, “he didn’t use that.” 

Falk looked around the room. Over by the 
window stood a large potted plant. He nodded 
almost jovially: 


[ 41 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I’ll bet anything,” said he, “that the earth 
around that plant is soaking wet, even if it is a 
fortnight since our lovable house-keeper watered 
it.” 

Miller looked at him in astonishment, and stuck 
his finger in the soil, but drew it quickly out again : 

“You’re right,” he gasped, quite grey in the 
face. 

“Did you bum yourself?” smiled Falk. “But, 
look here, for God’s sake, you’re not going to 
faint?” 

Miller wiped his brow. He was, indeed, sway- 
ing, but regained self-control and tried to smile: 

“You must really excuse me, but I’m a little less 
used to murder than you are — and when I 
stuck — ” 

He stopped abruptly. The front door bell 
shrilled loudly, again and again. 

“That is not the police,” said Falk astounded. 

Miller and he stood for several seconds staring 
silently at each other. The ringing became more 
and more persistent. 

“Who in the world — ,” Falk looked as if he 
sought in vain to solve a riddle. A riddle whose 
solution was a point of honour with him. Then he 
seemed to give it up, and went out in the corridor 
and opened the door. 


[ 42 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Miller heard him utter a cry of amazement. 
Falk stood as if paralyzed, with his hand on the 
door knob. Miller, too, stiffened with surprise. 

The light was lit in the hall. It was no hallu- 
cination they saw before them, and they were both 
sober. And yet for a moment they doubted their 
own sight and reason! The person who had 
rung was no other than Lange, Einar Lange, the 
artist! 

The murderer? 


[ 43 ] 


CHAPTER II 


L ANGE looked at them in utter perplexity. 
“I don’t understand — ,” he began halt- 
ingly. 

His eyes were anxious despite their surprised 
look, and he panted as if from running. 

Falk quietly shut the door behind him: 

“Let us go inside,” he proposed. 

“Your friend Mr. Miller persuaded me to come 
up here with him. My name is Arne Falk. We 
saw you rush away, and as you seemed so ex- 
cited — ” 

Lange nodded nervously: 

“It was my sweetheart,” he stammered. “Some- 
one called up — said she was fatally ill — I should 
come out at once — I jumped into my clothes and 
ran — 

Falk listened attentively, and sat with half -shut 
eyes. 

“And was reassured?” he asked. 

Lange shook his head negatively. 

“The door was locked,” he said, “and the whole 

[ 44 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
house was dark. Then I hurried back to tele- 
phone to ask if she was any better — ” 

He looked at Falk and Miller as if he expected 
that they would go. The latter stood with bent 
head overwhelmed by the painful situation. 

“Who called you up?” asked Falk. 

Lange regarded him with surprise: 

“It was, as I told you before, some one at Cap- 
tain Stock’s who called me up.” 

“Was it the Captain himself?” 

“I don’t think so.” 

“Who then?” 

“To tell the truth, I don’t know,” answered 
Lange a little impatiently. 

“How long have you been calling at their 
house?” 

Falk spoke so politely that Lange could not but 
answer. 

“For the last nine months,” said he, “about 
every day.” 

“Have you often talked with the members of 
the family over the telephone?” 

“Yes, very often but — ” 

“And yet you don’t know who called you up?” 

Lange shook his head impatiently. 

“I didn’t give it a thought when I received such 
bad news.” 


[451 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Have you any objection to my ringing up Cap- 
tain Stock about it? I’ll explain afterwards why I 
have such a deep interest in this telephoning.” 

“No, go ahead,” Lange’s astonishment appar- 
ently grew minute by minute. But it was also 
mixed with anxiety. 

“What’s their numfber?” asked Falk. 

“Vester 112,562.” 

Falk rang and gave the number. 

“Hurry please!” he told the operator, and 
waited. Some seconds passed. 

“Where is the Captain’s telephone placed?” 
asked Lange. 

“In the living-room — but at night they move it 
into their bedroom.” 

Falk still sat and waited. 

“That’s rather strange, as it — well, here we 
are — hello! Is this Captain Stock’s? Is this the 
Captain himself?” 

Falk heard a sleepy voice roar out an oath ask- 
ing who the devil it was that dared to disturb him, 
Captain Stock, in his night’s rest? 

“I am calling from Mr. Lange’s.” 

Falk heard a wordless grunt. 

“The Captain or his wife,” he said respectfully 
and with a reserved smile at the other’s rudeness, 
“called him up barely a half hour ago and told 
[46] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
him to hurry over as your daughter lay at the point 
of death — .” 

Falk stopped a moment. He was overcome by 
the storm of indignation that raged over the wire. 
Was somebody playing jokes on him, Captain 
Stock! Somebody was crazy, etc. 

Falk cut him short: 

“You did not ring then?” 

“No.” 

“And your daughter is not sick?” 

“No!” 

“Is there anything to it at all then?” 

“No. 

“If I only could get a night’s rest. Never have 
I heard — ” Then the Captain slammed up the 
phone. 

Falk hung up and turned towards Lange who, 
perplexed, had listened to the conversation. 

“He denies having called you.” 

“I don’t understand it.” Lange shook his head. 
“But thank God that Ada is well.” 

“Have you a telephone yourself?” asked Falk. 

Lange answered in the negative. 

“Did Miss Stock or her parents or any one else 
at all there in the house, know that you were going 
to spend the night with your foster-father?” 

“No, of course not. I didn’t know it myself be- 

[ 47 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
cause father — yes, I call him father — suggested it 
himself, the weather being so bad.” 

“How could any one at Stock’s, then, think of 
ringing you up here?” 

“No, that is quite true,” said Lange. “I hadn’t 
thought of that. They couldn’t.” 

There was a second’s pause. Neither Falk nor 
Miller stirred. Lange moved in embarrassment. 

“Now that you have cleared that up or rather — ” 
He stammered a little. He was bewildered and 
there was something in the air that made him ap- 
prehensive. 

“In other words, you are asking us to go,” said 
Falk. 

Lange nodded in relief. 

“It is late — and I am afraid that we will wake 
Mr. Saabye.” 

“You needn’t be afraid of that,” said Falk 
drily. “Mr. Saabye will wake no more in this 
life.” 

Lange became as pale and stiff as a corpse. He 
hardly breathed. He stared at Falk. At first 
with fear, and little by little more calmly. He wet 
his lips. 

“Did I understand you correctly?” he asked. 

Falk nodded: “Yes, Mr. Saabye is dead.” 

Then Lange was overcome. Sobs choked him. 

T48] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“Dead! Dead!” He actually writhed in his 
sorrow. 

Falk gazed at him, almost awed. 

If this was acting, then — 

“I am going in to him,” shouted Lange suddenly 
and ran to the door opening on the bedroom corri- 
dor. 

Falk jumped in front of him. 

“You’re going to stay here,” he ordered. 

Lange’s eyes blazed: 

“Are you mad, man? How dare you stop me, 
me, his son — !” 

“Your foster-father is murdered,” said Falk as 
quietly as he could. 

Lange became quiet immediately. 

“Murdered! Good God! — who did it? Who 
did it?” 

Again his emotions gripped him. Miller had to 
help Falk hold him. He would go in to his father. 
He shrieked and yelled, was like an inconsolable 
child. Suddenly he collapsed, stupid, powerless. 

Falk locked the door to the corridor. 

“I have some questions to ask you,” he said, 
and turned to Lange. “If you will answer them?” 

Lange nodded dully: 

“When was — when did he die?” he asked softly. 

“About a quarter to twelve,” said Falk. “About 

[ 49 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
five or ten minutes before you were called up, as 
you say.” 

Lange raised his head incredulously. 

“That is impossible!” he said. 

He wet his dry lips and broke down again. 

“Oh, poor father! poor father!” 

“When did you go to bed?” asked Falk un- 
moved by the other’s despair. 

“A little before eleven,” answered Lange. “I 
happen to know it precisely. I always put my 
watch, and whatever I have in my pockets, aside 
before I go to bed, and I happened to look at it 
then.” 

“You insist, then, that you laid these things 
aside this evening also?” asked Falk. “Think a 
moment.” 

“I laid them on the table there,” explained 
Lange, who now had become more calm but was 
terribly pale: “my watch, a cigar-clipper, a pencil 
and my pocket-knife.” 

“And you have not been outside the room here, 
before you — after the mysterious telephone call — 
ran down the stairs? Not in your foster-father’s 
room?” 

“No.” 

“Do you know this knife?” asked Falk and 

[ 50 ] 


1 


TWO DEAD MEN 
handed him the knife he had found in the bed- 
room corridor. 

“Yes, it is mine,” admitted Lange. 

“How did it get out in the corridor leading to 
Mr. Saabye’s bedroom then?” 

Lange shook his head, completely at a loss, and 
was about to put the folded pen-knife in his pocket. 
Falk stopped him. 

“We’ll let the police have that,” said he. “By 
the way, what condition are its blades in?” 

Lange looked at him in surprise. 

“You can easily find out yourself by opening 
it,” he said. 

“Just now, I prefer,” smiled Falk, “to learn it 
from you!” 

Lange gave a shrug. 

“It has only one blade and there is nothing the 
matter with that.” 

“Is it nicked at all?” 

“No, not a bit.” 

Falk showed him the damaged knife. 

“I don’t understand it,” said Lange. “The 
blade was all right when I put it on fhe table.” 

“Perhaps you can explain better,” said Falk 
somewhat sharply, “where this smear of blood on 
the wash basin comes from, and why the water is 

[ 51 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
emptied not in the slop pail but on the potted plant 
there.” He pointed to the Pelargonia. 

“I don’t understand that either,” admitted 
Lange, and the colour rushed to his face: 

“But what business is this of yours, anyway? 
Am I being cross-examined?” 

Falk shook his head. 

“No, not at all. But you probably soon will be. 
The police ought to be here soon.” 

Lange became quiet at once. 

“You talk to me,” he said to Falk, “as if I were 
a criminal. It can’t be that you are silly enough 
to believe that I am mixed up in this crime. 
In a vile crime against an old man! And a man 
who has done me all the good in his power! Who 
has been a father to me!” 

Falk looked at him calmly without answering. 

Miller shrugged his shoulders sorrowfully. 
With a nervous laugh, Lange took out his hand- 
kerchief to dry his damp forehead. All the colour 
had vanished from his face. “Madness! Mad- 
ness!” he mumbled. 

Hardly had he said it when Falk tore the hand- 
kerchief out of his grasp and held it up to the 
light. 

“Look there!” 

The three looked. 


[ 52 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

It was bloody. 

“And your coat?” And he drew the wellnigh 
nerveless Lange over to the light. 

His light grey coat was sprinkled with large, 
dark spots! 

Lange stared at them. He saw clearly that it 
was dried blood. . . . The blood roared in his 
ears. He felt consciousness slipping away from 
him. He swayed slightly. 

“Take hold of him!” cried Falk to Miller who 
stood nearest. Miller seized him but instantly let 
go again, Lange fell to the floor. 

“It was the blood,” stammered Miller. “The 
blood on his coat. This will cause me many a 
sleepless hour. I wish the deuce we had gone to 
the Figaro instead.” 

Falk had got Lange over to the sofa, and was 
bathing his temples with water from the pitcher. 
Miller looked on silently. 

“Is Lange Saabye’s heir?” asked Falk suddenly. 

“Yes, he is the sole heir. Saabye told me so 
this very evening as we talked about him. The 
old man had made no alteration in the will. He 
was a fine old fellow.” 

The front door bell rang, a short, quick ring. 

“That is the police,” said Falk. “Go out and 
open the door.” 


[ 53 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Lange began to stir as Inspector Jensen-Skan- 
drup and several detectives stepped in the room 
accompanied by Miller and a physician, Dr. Ped- 
ersen. 

Jensen-Skandrup nodded jovially: 

“Still on the job,” he said and greeted Falk re- 
spectfully. 

“Where is the body?” asked Dr. Pedersen. 

“Stay here a minute,” Falk told Preben Miller. 

One of the detectives began to search the room. 

Falk showed the others into the bedroom. 
“Phew!” grunted the Inspector as he saw the dead 
man. “They certainly did a good job. That 
was made by a sure hand. It didn’t tremble 
much.” 

He accompanied Falk out into the corridor. 
The doctor began his examination, and the men 
from the identification bureau tried to find finger- 
prints and so on. 

“Have you any clues?” he asked Falk. 

“Plenty of them,” answered the latter, and told 
the Inspector of Lange’s flight from the house, the 
discovery of the murder, the finding of the bloody 
ten crown notes, and the blood spots on Lange’s 
coat and handkerchief. 

“Could you wish any more evidence?” 

“No, that’s clear enough,” said Jensen-Skan- 

[ 54 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
drup, “although it was the Devil and not our Lord 
who invented circumstantial evidence.” 

Falk nodded smilingly. It was one of his own 
bon mots which the Inspector absent-mindedly had 
used. 

The door to the study opened. It was Preben 
Miller. “Lange has come to himself again,” he 
said. “He wishes to talk to the Inspector.” 

They went in. Lange sat on the sofa looking 
very bewildered. 

“I am Inspector Jensen-Skandrup,” said the de- 
tective somewhat harshly. “You wish to speak 
to me?” 

Lange nodded. 

“I have a question to ask you. Yes, for Mr. 
Falk has probably told you what has happened? — 
Do you take me for the murderer?” 

Jensen-Skandrup shrugged his shoulders: 

“I really haven’t formed any opinion of that 
yet. I must, however, hold you in custody, for it is 
a fact that you are the only male person outside 
of the murdered man, who was in the house at the 
time of the crime. Mr. Falk and his friend 
searched the place a few moments after you ran 
away from here with a bloody coat and handker- 
chief. It’s easy to see that the kitchen door has 
been locked since the house-keeper went to bed. 
[ 55 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
And the lock on the street door can not be opened 
with false keys.” 

Lange, perplexed, sought a way out. 

“Couldn’t the murderer have secured the keys to 
the front door?” he asked and suddenly thought 
of something: 

“Mrs. Rosenkvist, the house-keeper, was saying 
last night that she thought she had lost her keys. 
Father was a little angry about it, for she is always 
losing or forgetting something. He showed her a 
third bunch of keys that always hang in the cor- 
ridor and gave her permission to use them if she 
could not find her own. But he told her to take 
care of them. Mrs. Rosenkvist probably went out 
yesterday afternoon. Maybe the murderer fol- 
lowed and stole the keys from her!” 

“Go in and get the house-keeper,” ordered Jen- 
sen-Skandrup. The detective who was searching 
the room went out into the corridor. They heard 
him knock on the door to Mrs. Rosenkvist’s rooms. 

“You insist then,” and the Inspector turned to 
Lange, “that you slept right from 11 o’clock when 
you went to bed, until 12 o’clock when you were 
awakened?” 

Lange nodded: “Yes!” 

“You heard no noise of any description from 
your foster-father’s room?” 

[ 56 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 


“No!” 

“The murderer must have passed by this room 
here — both going in and back. You heard nothing 
of him then?” 

Lange again shook his head. 

“Neither,” continued the Inspector with a more 
and more insinuating smile, “when he entered the 
house or when he left it?” 

“No, you see, I sleep very heavily,” explained 
Lange. 

The Inspector nodded with a sarcastic smile. 

“Very heavily,” he repeated. 

“And yet I think I was half awake at some time 
or other,” Lange recalled without having noticed 
the Inspector’s ironical suspicion. 

“Is that so?” Jensen-Skandrup still smiling 
nodded encouragingly to him. 

“Until this minute,” explained Lange. “I con- 
sidered it a dream but it is all too real to have been 
a dream. No, I was awake or rather half awake 
when — ” 

He sat and stared straight in front of him, as if 
he were calling back the picture of that moment. 
Jensen-Skandrup gave Falk a meaning look. 

“Well, what happened?” he asked Lange with 
apparent scepticism. 

“It all seems to me,” Lange strove to remember, 

[ 57 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“like a blurred photograph. But there was some- 
thing, a bright object or a streak of light in the 
middle of it — and something long and pale like 
a hand — and then a slight noise of something or 
other — and constantly a rushing and roaring as of 
music or of a storm.” 

“You can’t define it more clearly?” asked Falk 
with marked interest. 

“That Mr. Lange can not, I am sure,” said Jen- 
sen-Skandrup scornfully. He did not believe a 
word of the painted, fantastic account, as it 
seemed to him. 

“But here is the house-keeper,” he said, and 
turned towards the door that had been opened be- 
hind him. “Now we can get matters cleared up 
about those keys.” 

The house-keeper, nodding and curtseying, 
came into the room. She was dressed as if she 
were going to a festival. 

“She absolutely would change her clothes,” 
whispered the detective to Jensen-Skandrup. The 
house-keeper glanced at the latter in confusion. 
He began to question her about the keys: 

“Do you think it is possible that some one has 
stolen them from you?” 

“No, for I have already found them,” explained 
Mrs. Rosenkvist in a shaky voice. 

[ 58 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Where were they?” 

“On the stand out in the corridor leading to 
my room.” 

Einar Lange bowed his head despondently — the 
Inspector smiled in triumph. 

“Good,” he said to the house-keeper, “you will 
be notified when to report in court.” 

Mrs. Rosenkvist made a curtsey, and backed 
hurriedly out of the room. 

“It didn’t work, did it?” asked Jensen-Skan- 
drup. Lange jumped to his feet in protest, but 
managed to control himself. 

Dr. Pedersen and the officer from the identifica- 
tion bureau now appeared. Falk drew the physi- 
cian to one side. 

“May I see the death certificate?” 

Dr. Pedersen gave it to him. Falk studied it 
closely. He stopped at the description of the 
wound : 

“The throat cut in an absolutely death-dealing 
gash from left to right. Wound made by a razor, 
and followed by almost instantaneous death.” 

He also noted the doctor’s temporary report of 
the probable moment of death which about coin- 
cided with the time the watch had shown. 

“It’s a sad affair,” said Dr. Pedersen. 

He might as well have said that the weather was 

[ 59 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
cold. He had written too many death certificates 
to be moved by one more. 

“No finger prints!” Falk heard Jensen-Skan- 
drup burst out. “I’ll be damned!” 

The detectives substantiated it: 

“Only the dead man’s,” they said, “and the 
house-keeper’s.” 

“Let’s go then,” and Jensen-Skandrup turned to- 
wards Lange. 

“Fm going to stay here a few minutes,” said 
Falk. 

“All right, have a good time! And good 
night!” The Inspector went out with Lange and 
the two detectives. The third remained to search 
the house more thoroughly. 

“I’ll see Dr. Pedersen on his way,” said Miller 
and gave Falk his hand: “I’ve had enough of this 
murder-laden air for the evening.” 

Falk stood by the window and saw the automo- 
bile with Lange and the detectives drive away. 
Miller and Dr. Pedersen sauntered, chatting, down 
toward Vesterbro Market. Falk turned away at 
an exclamation from the detective whom he had 
heard rattling the coal-scuttle while replenishing 
the fire. 

“What is it?” 

The detective took something out of the scuttle 

[ 60 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
and laid it on the table. A pair of blood stained 
gloves with the initials E. L.! Falk whistled 
softly. That was why there had been no finger 
prints, neither on the safe nor the razor! And 
that was why the towel had been so bloody. The 
murderer had — God only knows for what reason 
— washed and dried his hands with the bloody 
gloves on. The detective shook his head in be- 
wilderment. 

“I never came up against anything like this be- 
fore,” he said, “such a mixture of the professional 
and the amateur.” 

Falk offered him a cigar and lit one himself. 

“Have you any objection to my spending a few 
minutes in the bedroom?” Falk asked. 

“No, not at all, Mr. Falk. Only don’t touch 
anything in there.” 

“No fear, I won’t!” 

The man eagerly continued his search, and Falk 
opened the door to the bedroom. He turned on 
the light there, looked around and then put it out 
again. Then he raised the roller shade. The 
moon shone into the room, and shed its light over 
the head of the bed. Falk lifted the cloth that had 
been laid over the head of the corpse, and exam- 
ined the wound carefully. 

The room had the form of a parallelogram 

[ 61 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
whose four corners were right angles. The bed 
stood up against the long wall and directly op- 
posite the door. Its head was towards the win- 
dow in the short wall on the right, and separated 
from it by the wash-stand. The safe stood against 
the wall on the left. 

Falk hastily visualized the murder. From the 
door the murderer had moved softly to the right 
toward the head of the bed. Over by the win- 
dow, he must have stopped a moment, probably 
from fear of waking his victim. For Falk saw 
that the curtain on the right side of the window 
had been stepped on and had sagged a little. The 
noise must have been very slight. But the mur- 
derer in spite of that had stopped and waited until 
the old man’s regular breathing had assured him 
that he slept. After which he had stolen over to 
the Wash stand upon whose glass top the razor had 
lain. And of which the murderer must have 
Known beforehand. 

He had thus obtained the knife, and then had 
tiptoed over behind the head of the bed. Saabye, 
who had a slight tendency to asthma, always slept 
with somewhat low-cut night-shirts. It had been 
easy for the murderer, then, to see his throat, and 
to calculate his stroke. Now he had bent over 
the somewhat low bedstead. And in the same in- 
[ 62 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
stant that he, with one stroke from left to right, had 
cut the throat of his victim, he had with his be- 
gloved hand choked the cry that he feared Saabye 
would utter. 

Falk seemed to see the death certificate before 
him: 

“The throat cut in an absolutely death-dealing 
gash from left to right — ” 

And beside it, a picture of Lange at the instant 
when Falk had handed him the pocket knife, and 
he stood with it in his hand. Falk grew pale from 
excitement — But did he remember correctly? 
And lastly what did this array of evidence mean 
that had loomed up against Lange: the flight, the 
telephoning, his knowledge of the safe combina- 
tion, the bloody coat and handkerchief, the bloody 
gloves, etc., etc.! 

But still — 

Falk covered the face of the dead man and left 
the room. As he passed the little mahogany stand 
in the hall, he stopped. Of course, the murderer 
could have stolen the house-keeper’s keys during 
the afternoon, and could have laid them here after 
he had killed Saabye. The motive, however, 
seemed a little obscure. 

Falk knocked on Mrs. Rosenkvist’s door, who 
instantly appeared, pale and distracted. 

[ 63 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Do you usually put the keys on the stand 
there?” he asked. 

“Yes, I have often put them there. But mostly 
here in my bureau drawer or out in the entry.” 

Falk wished her a friendly good night. There 
was no information of any value to be obtained 
here. 

As he entered the study, the detective was bent 
over something on the carpet quite over by the fire- 
place. 

Some cigarette ashes! 

“I don’t know,” and he turned uncertainly to 
Falk, “if this has any bearing on the case.’*’ 

Falk recognized the blue-green ashes at once. 

“I’m afraid not,” he smiled, “the man who 
dropped those ashes — it is of a very rare cig- 
arette called ‘Sunka,’ which is frightfully expen- 
sive and tastes beastly — has, it is true, killed 
various persons, but the police can do nothing to 
him.” 

The detective looked at Falk in amazement. 

“Why not?” he asked. 

“Because he is a writer, and his name is Pre- 
ben Miller.” 

The detective gaped, and still did not under- 
stand. 

“And,” finished Falk, “last but not least be- 
cause it’s in his books that he kills people.” 

[ 64 ] 


CHAPTER III 


T HE next day, the anteroom outside the 
Criminal Court was filled with witnesses 
in the Saabye murder case. 

During the preliminary examination, Einar 
Lange had denied everything, in a most defiant, 
most ridiculous manner. The examination had 
ended with the District Attorney putting him under 
arrest, and the examination of the witnesses be- 
gan a few minutes after. Falk and Miller came 
out of the offices after they had submitted their evi- 
dence. It was afternoon but still light. They 
both went over to the window. The snow slanted 
down from an unseen sky. 

“Stock is here,” said Falk quietly. Preben Mil- 
ler nodded. He’d also seen him. 

“I am so sorry for Ada,” he said. “She sits 
there looking like a veritable Snow-Queen. She 
is so damnably proud. Nobody can guess what 
she is suffering.” 

Arne Falk still looked out of the window. Mil- 
ler took out his watch. “We’d better be going?” 
[ 65 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I’m waiting for Lange, he ought to be here 
right away.” 

“What the deuce do you want with him?” 

“I want him to substantiate or strengthen an 
idea that I have.” 

Miller smiled slightly. 

“You are so secretive, you sleuths! But other- 
wise, I suppose, no one would believe in you.” 

Falk imitated his smile. 

“We must, even as you worthy authors, make 
ourselves ridiculous to convince the public that we 
have talent. It’s all merely suggestion — ” 

Miller’s smile became a little forced. 

Captain Stock sat on one of the benches with his 
wife and daughter and growled. The mere fact 
that he had been ordered to appear by a non- 
militaristic institution peeved him greatly. 

And they dared to make him wait in the bar- 
gain! Nearly a quarter of an hour passed since 
the stipulated time! Somebody should just have 
tried that when he was in the Service! He would 
get solitary confinement were he a hundred times 
a District Attorney! But now he had passed the 
age limit! Was past active service! Oh, hum! 
Hm! But the Fiend fly away with him, anyway, 
if he would sit here — ! 

His growling rose to a roar. His somewhat 

[ 66 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
brow-beaten spouse blinked at him with red- 
rimmed eyes. But he would not look. Then she 
whispered to him: 

“Do be quiet, dear Frederick, it will be our 
turn soon.” 

The Captain swallowed an oath: 

“What times we live in!” he bellowed. “Mur- 
der and robbery and unpunctuality! People re- 
fuse to go to war! They refuse to become sol- 
diers! But they slit folks’s gullets from behind! 
And then they talk of progress! Progress!” 

Mrs. Louise Stock soothed him as best she could, 
and looked anxiously about. She had heard many 
terrible tales of how people were treated up here. 
And her dear Frederick had such a hasty temper. 
Her frightened, worried glance rested on the 
benches. How disgustingly dusty they were. 
Were they never cleaned? Her very fingers 
itched at the sight, but then she happened to look 
at her daughter and forgot everything else. 

“Poor little Ada,” she whispered very low, and 
pressed her daughter’s hand. The Captain also 
looked over at Ada but looked hurriedly away 
again, and hemmed and hawed fiercely. Mrs. 
Stock stared fixedly in front of her. It was so 
dreadfully sad. Ada had become quite pale and 
rigid. As if she were frozen in her very inner- 
[ 67 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
most heart. But then she, her mother, knew how 
good and loving she was for all her cold exterior, 
and how deeply she cared for that unfortunate per- 
son. She sneaked her handkerchief out. Tears 
filled her eyes. 

“Louise!” the Captain’s whisper echoed like a 
suppressed howl. It made her start. Everybody 
looked their way, and her husband looked at the 
innocent handkerchief as if he would burn it up 
with his eyes. 

“Louise! No bawling! Do you hear? An 
officer’s wife does not cry.” 

She hurriedly put away her handkerchief al- 
though her eyes were quite wet. 

“But Ada, dear!” 

Her daughter had gripped her hand and held it 
as if she would crush it. But she did not look at 
her mother. She stared straight at the broad, old- 
fashioned stairway. Some one was coming down! 
Mrs. Stock started. She could have sunk through 
the floor from shame. And yet she liked him so 
much. 

It was Einar Lange, and a policeman. 

The Captain had also seen him, and sat stiffly, 
looking as if he stood hopeless but fearless before 
a firing squad. Only the beard around his mouth 
quivered a little. 


[ 68 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“There he is,” said Falk quietly and left his 
place by the window. 

Lange was very pale but calm. Instead of the 
blood-stained coat he wore one of somewhat worn 
black cloth. The police had searched his lodgings 
immediately after his arrest and they had brought 
it along. His head was bowed slightly. As he 
stopped in front of Ada Stock, he held it suddenly 
erect. Her face was like ice, without expression 
and full of coldness. She looked through him. 

“Ada,” he said, in a low voice. 

She opened her mouth slightly and then grimly 
closed it. 

“Ada,” he repeated and would have said more 
but gripped at the empty air and was about to fall, 
weakened as he was from a perplexed and sleep- 
less night and anxious over the suspicious coldness 
he seemed to read in her face. 

“A glass of water,” cried the policeman. “The 
carafe is over there by the window.” 

Miller poured out some water, but Falk tore the 
glass from his hand and gave it to Lange. The 
latter took it with a shaking hand, emptied it and 
walked, staring stiffly in front of him, into the Dis- 
trict Attorney’s office. The door closed behind 
him with a bang. 

Miller looked at Falk in amazement: 

[ 69 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Why the deuce did you take the glass — ■” he 
began but stopped quickly. 

Falk was smiling broadly. 

“What in the world are you smiling about?” 

“Let us go,” said Falk without answering him. 
They greeted the Captain and his family as they 
passed. Ada Stock did not recognize them. 

“Poor girl,” said Falk, and grew suddenly mel- 
ancholy: 

“It is not I who am a genius,” he said, “but you 
others who are so unutterably stupid.” 

“Beg pardon,” Miller stammered. 

“Oh, I was only joshing,” said Falk and smiled 
again. 

“What was the matter with you before?” and 
Miller gazed at him thoughtfully. 

“I made a discovery,” confided Falk, “an ex- 
ceedingly important discovery.” 

“And what was it?” asked the other indiffer- 
ently. 

“Of something that you have known for many 
years,” teased Falk. 

Miller shook his head and lit a cigarette: 

“I am no good at riddles,” he said without press- 
ing Falk for any further explanation. 

They went silently down the courthouse steps. 
As they came out on the street, the snow ceased fall- 
[ 70 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
ing. The street lamps were being lit around them. 
They turned down the boulevard. A fur-coated 
gentleman with a black drooping moustache swung 
his silk hat in a respectful greeting to Preben Mil- 
ler who barely acknowledged it. Falk looked 
after the fur clad man in surprise: 

“Wasn’t that Hempel? Your chief creditor?” 

“Yes! There ought to be a law against vermin 
of his sort greeting one on the street,” Miller 
growled. 

“He was deucedly polite! Did he cash that last 
note?” 

“Yes, thank the Lord!” Miller sighed in relief. 

“Whose name did you put on the back of it this 
time?” smiled Falk. “Luckily I won’t do.” 

Miller took him jovially by the arm. 

“What a world we live in, when Arne Falk’s 
name is not good enough for the back of a false 
note.” 

They walked in silence for some minutes. The 
light and bustle around them refreshed them. 
They were both men of the metropolis. 

“What do you think of the case, anyway?” asked 
Miller suddenly. 

“To be quite honest with you, for once, I haven’t 
the slightest idea where it is leading to.” 

“But the discovery you made?” 

[ 71 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“ — only led me away from one clue without 
pointing to another — ” 

Up in the courthouse District Attorney Jorgen- 
sen struggled with Einar Lange. The small, fiery 
official was really angry: 

“I consider you too intelligent a man to per- 
sist in this ridiculous system of denial. But let 
me tell you, you shall have time enough to figure 
things out if we prolong your custody indefinitely.” 

Einar Lange merely shrugged his shoulders. 
He hardly heard him. He constantly saw Ada’s 
stony face before him. 

“You still deny then,” persisted the prosecutor, 
“that you paid the deceased this visit for the sole 
purpose of borrowing money from him.” 

“Yes, absolutely.” 

The District Attorney made a hopeless gesture. 

“What are your plans in regard to your mar- 
riage with Miss Stock? You see I can have no re- 
gard for your feelings in a case like this.” 

“We had intended to be married in the course 
of a few months,” said Lange. 

Jorgensen smiled triumphantly. 

“You make quite a little on your pictures then? 
The taste for them is well — a bit — hm! — orig- 
inal—” 


[ 72 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I’ve done fairly well this last year,” said 
Lange. “But my parents 1 — ” 

The District Attorney interrupted him. 

“Thanks, I didn’t ask you about that — but what 
do you call doing fairly well,” he continued. 

“Oh, a couple of thousand kroner a year.” 

Jorgensen stretched out his hand to one of the 
clerks. 

“Income tax returns,” he ordered and got them. 
“You were taxed for twenty-one hundred kroner 
last year. Did you make more or less this year?” 

“Almost the same, maybe a couple of hundred 
more.” 

The prosecuter placed the blanks carefully to- 
gether: 

“Miss Stock,” said he, “is the daughter of a rich 
man. It was expected then that your father-in- 
law-to-be would help you out with a yearly 
sum?” 

“No, I won’t accept charity, no matter how 
kindly it is offered.” 

“Which it probably wasn’t?” 

Lange shrugged his shoulders. 

“There’s been no talk of anything of that nature 
between Captain Stock and myself.” 

“And you really have no intention of proposing 
such an arrangement?” 

[ 73 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“No, no more than I have of receiving anything 
whatsoever from him.” 

“You’re not in sympathy with Mr. Stock, then?” 

“No, we have different ideas about everything 
under the sun. I told Ada, my fiancee, already a 
week ago — our engagement was not officially an- 
nounced then, — that I would take over both the 
wedding expenses and the trousseau, and she 
agreed with me. However, I don’t see — ” 

The other interrupted him. 

“That’s all right. But maybe you can under- 
stand that it’s impossible, hopelessly impossible, 
for you to marry a lady like Miss Stock on an 
average income of 2000 kroner a year.” 

“That is something that concerns only Miss 
Stock and myself,” Lange flared up. 

“No, not at all,” sneered Jorgensen and turned 
to the court officer. “Bring the house-keeper, 
Mrs. Rosenkvist, in here.” 

Mrs. Rosenkvist was almost ready to faint with 
fright as she stood before the bar. She did not 
like the atmosphere of the room. It smelled too 
much of crime. 

“You know this gentleman here?” asked the 
District Attorney and pointed to Lange. 

Mrs. Rosenkvist stammered a half -choked: 

[ 74 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Yes, to my sorrow.” 

“Do you maintain your assertion that he visited 
the deceased last evening in order to borrow money 
from him?” 

The house-keeper nodded uneasily and glanced 
at Lange who, half surprised, half angry, ex- 
claimed : 

“But what in the world — ” 

The prosecutor interrupted him: 

“Be so kind as to answer only when you are 
spoken to.” 

With that he turned to the house-keeper: 

“Mr. Lange considers your testimony a down- 
right lie,” he said to urge the cowed lady to a 
more spirited declaration, and it did not fail. At 
first the house-keeper was staggered by the bare 
audacity of the statement, but she soon found her 
tongue. Like a top she whirled around to Lange, 
her face flaming with indignant anger. 

“Mr. Lange has perhaps quite forgotten that I 
stood in Mr. Saabye’s bedroom while he and my 
poor master were over by the safe — Or maybe 
you have forgotten what you said to the master 
then?” 

Lange smiled wanly: 

“I have forgotten neither — I asked father — as 

[ 75 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
a joke, of course — to teach me the combination of 
the safe so that if he should show himself stingy, 
I could help myself to the contents.” 

“There was some talk of money then?” con- 
cluded the District Attorney. 

“Yes, there was,” admitted Lange, “but with- 
out any designs on my part whatsoever.” 

“Did the deceased then show you the combina- 
tion?” 

“Yes.” 

“Did you learn it by heart?” 

“Yes.” 

The other looked at him in surprise; he had ex- 
pected a denial. 

“Did you see that there was money in the safe? 
Or did you know about it beforehand?” 

“I saw my father put it away, besides he had 
told me earlier that he had been unable to get to 
the bank with it on account of the bad weather, 
and that there was about 4000 kroner.” 

The house-keeper stirred uneasily. 

“Is there something you would like to say?” 
Jorgensen asked her. 

“Yes, about a remark that Mr. Lange made as 
the money was put in the safe.” 

Lange shook his head a bit irritably. 

[76] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I said,” he cut short the house-keeper’s will- 
ing information, “that I ought to learn the com- 
bination. So much more so as I might have use 
for the money that very night.” 

“Which was not without reason,” continued the 
District Attorney, “partly because you needed it, 
either for your wedding or otherwise! And 
partly because your foster-father rarely had so 
large a sum on hand.” 

“It was all in joking, of course,” answered 
Lange. 

Jorgensen smiled scornfully. 

“Of course — ” Lange began. 

“You will be told when we wish further infor- 
mation,” and he turned to the house-keeper who, 
curtseying deeply, left the room. 

“You have some debts,” he continued his exam- 
ination of Lange. 

“Only very little.” 

“No pressing obligations?” 

“No.” 

The prosecutor smiled maliciously, and showed 
Lange a letter: 

“What do you call this?” 

Lange grew white and red by turns but did not 


answer. 


[ 77 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“If you care to listen,” said Jorgensen with 
ironical politeness, and began to read the letter: 

Mr. Einar Lange, 

As I hear that you are about to become engaged to 
Miss Ada Stock, I suggest in all friendship that we 
settle a little affair that still exists between us. In 
which you owe me 1000 kroner. This, I think, you will 
not deny. However, I will not wait any longer for 
the money. I will give you a week to get it in. If I 
have not received it by that time, I shall be forced to 
go to your future father-in-law, the rich Captain Stock. 
I hope, however, that this will not be necessary. He 
is said to be somewhat prudish, and would surely dis- 
approve of that letter of a year ago in which you made 
me an offer of marriage — and also of the fact that you 
have loaned money to a girl like me — however, you will 
have no trouble getting the money, I am sure. In a 
week’s time then. 

Respectfully, 

Elly Hansen. 

“The week was up yesterday,” continued the 
District Attorney coldly. “Is it clear to you what 
would happen if this Elly Hansen went to your 
fiancee’s father?” 

Einar Lange nodded stupidly. 

“And it has always been clear to you?” 

“Yes.” 

“You forgot about this very pressing obligation 
before.” 

[ 78 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I didn’t mention it because this letter is nothing 
but a downright attempt at blackmail.” 

“You deny, then, owing this Elly Hansen 2000 
kroner?” 

“Yes of course.” 

“Perhaps you don’t know this lady at all?” 

“Unfortunately, yes. I was at one time so 
youthfully in love with her that I did offer to 
marry her. But, thank the Lord, she jilted me.” 

“Bring Elly Hansen in here,” ordered the pros- 
ecutor. 

“And show the accused into the next room.” 

The court officer hurriedly thrust Lange in the 
side room to which the official had pointed. 

Elly Hansen stepped in before the bar clad in 
an elegant grey fur cloak. She exhaled an odour 
of fleur d’amour. She smiled winningly at the 
District Attorney. 

“This was the letter,” he said, “do you acknowl- 
edge it as your own?” 

“Yes, I certainly do. Are you in doubt?” 

“It smells strongly of blackmail, my dear Elly 
Hansen.” 

She laughed scornfully. 

“It is just as much blackmail as if you wrote to 
some one who owed you money, if you were in 
need of it.” 


[ 79 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The District Attorney nodded sceptically; 

“How did Mr. Lange come to owe you so much 
money?” 

“Oh, I can’t say for sure. For travelling and 
cafe expenses. First class hotels are costly in the 
long run, and I never drank anything but cham- 
pagne.” 

“Have you any proof of the debt?” 

“Proof and proof!” Elly Hansen shrugged her 
shoulders. “I have always had confidence in the 
men I have known. A gentleman does not cheat 
a poor woman — ” 

“ — who can loan a 1000 kroner,” continued 
the prosecutor ironically. 

“It was indeed all my savings,” she insisted 
undaunted. 

“Has the accused had any reason to believe that 
you would make good your threat and go to Cap- 
tain Stock if he did not pay you the money?” 

“Yes, Einar Lange knows me well. He knows 
I have plenty of backbone. I don’t threaten. I 
do.” 

“That’s all,” said the District Attorney in dis- 
missal. “Thank you.” 

She left the room like a condescending queen. 

“Open the window!” snarled the District Attor- 

[ 80 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
ney. “She has poisoned the air with her damn per- 
fume!” 

The winter air quickly filled the room. 

“Captain Stock and wife,” was the attorney’s 
next order. 

The court officer opened the door for them an 
instant after. The Captain was a reddish blue 
from indignation over having waited so long. He 
gave Jorgensen a furious look: 

“I was told to be here at two-thirty — ” he began 
to roar when he was stopped by the prosecutor’s 
short: 

“You are Captain Stock, are you not?” 

“Yes,” he boomed. 

“And this lady is your wife?” 

“Yes.” 

“I will not inconvenience you long, Captain. 
We have sent for you and your wife in order to 
clear up, if possible, this matter of the mysterious 
telephoning that Mr. Lange insists has taken 
place — Do you lock the door to your bedroom at 
night?” 

Captain Stock cleared his throat embarrassedly. 

“Yes, you see my wife is easily frightened. She 
has not as I — have — been — ” 

“Did you lock it last night?” 

[ 81 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The Captain grunted in peevish assent. He 
was angry at the interruption. 

“Are you sure?” continued the District Attor- 
ney undisturbed, “that there was no one in there 
or that no one could have gotten in while you and 
your wife slept, who could have sent this myste- 
rious message?” 

The Captain cleared his throat again: 

“Yes, quite sure,” he mumbled. “As an old 
soldier I realize the importance of keeping my 
post. And these are unquiet times, so — ” 

“We always search the room before we go to 
bed,” interjected Mrs. Stock anxiously. “And my 
husband sleeps very lightly. He would have awak- 
ened at once if anybody had come in the room. 
Particularly as there is only one and the same door 
to the—” 

“And as I,” continued the Captain interrupt- 
ing her, “following my wife’s wishes, placed va- 
rious articles against the door which would have 
been crushed if the door (which opens inwardly) 
had been opened from the outside.” 

“You believe then that it was impossible 
that anybody could have rung up from your 
house?” 

“Yes, absolutely.” 

The District Attorney got up and said politely: 

[ 82 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Thank you for your information. You will 
not be bothered again.” 

The Captain, with a gracious nod, bustled out of 
the room, followed by his wife. 

“Miss Ada Stock,” called the District Attorney. 

The court officer opened the door of the ante- 
room and repeated the call. She came at once. 
He shut the door behind her. 

“Offer the lady a chair,” he ordered. 

She nodded gratefully and sank into it. She 
was pale as a corpse, but not a muscle moved in 
her face. 

Jorgensen’s voice was friendly and sympa- 
thetic as he asked; 

“Hasn’t your fiance a hasty temper?” 

She nodded, trying in vain to speak. 

“Pardon me if I ask,” said the prosecutor, “but 
is your approaching marriage his or your plan?” 

“It is his,” she stammered: “I advised against 
it; I am young and can easily wait. But he 
wouldn’t hear of it.” 

“Didn’t his pecuniary circumstances make you 
reflect on such a hasty marriage?” 

“Yes, and I spoke to him about it. But he said 
that we could manage very well without help 
from anybody.” 

“Not even from his foster-father?” 

[ 83 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“No, not from him either.” 

“Do you believe in your lover’s innocence?” 

She looked slowly up at him. 

“I hope for it,” she whispered. “But if he is 
guilty he has done it in a fit of insanity. He’s 
hasty tempered and also a little thoughtless. But 
otherwise he is the best man in the world.” 

Jorgensen saw that she was about to cry. 

“Thanks, that’s all,” he said. 

He heard her sob as the door to the anteroom 
closed behind her. The District Attorney knit his 
brows. 

“Why do the best women always love the worst 
men?” he muttered slowly, and then suddenly hit 
the desk a blow with his fist. 

“Bring Einar Lange in here!” 

The door to the side room opened. Lange’s eyes 
were moist. He had heard Ada Stock defend him. 
He had wept. 

“Rag!” sneered Jorgensen without looking at 
him, “well, have you wisely reconsidered things 
in the meantime?” 

“If you by ‘wisely reconsidering’ mean a con- 
fession,” said Lange quietly, “I have not re- 
considered.” 

“You are only wasting time by your obstinacy,” 

[ 84 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
said the attorney in a not unfriendly tone. “Let 
us try to come to an understanding. 

“You are quite poor and have a comparatively 
small income. In spite of this you intend to 
marry the daughter of a wealthy man from whom 
you cannot expect, or, in accordance with your own 
words, cannot think of help. You know that your 
fiancee as the only daughter and child of the afore- 
said wealthy man is somewhat spoiled. You know 
also that a change in your pecuniary status is 
highly problematical. And although you are 
neither heartless, insane or known as an impostor, 
you, who I have heard really love your fiancee, 
will nevertheless drag her down to your poverty 
and the bitter struggle for existence. I refuse to 
believe in such conduct towards a person one is 
fond of. And I find it still more to be con- 
demned. I believe you to have committed this 
crime — with the understandable, if not justifiable 
motive of securing enough money to insure your 
future wife a carefree existence. But perhaps 
you will still insist that the thought never struck 
you, that you would become rich at your foster- 
father’s death.” 

“No, not in connection with the plans for my 
marriage.” 

[ 85 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Not in connection with the letter from Elly 
Hansen either? As you well knew — from your 
foster-father’s antipathy to this lady — that he 
would not help you about it.” 

“No, not that time either. I did not think that 
she would do anything about it. I regarded the 
letter of so little consequence, that I threw it into 
the waste-basket at once where your people no 
doubt found it.” 

The District Attorney, with a shrug, resumed 
quietly: 

“After a quarrel with your foster-father of a 
year’s standing, you visit him one evening. You 
have some days before received a — let us call it 
a threatening letter, which menaces that connec- 
tion that you consider essential to your life’s suc- 
cess. 

“After a year’s separation between people who 
are fond of each other, the confidence between 
them usually grows much greater. I will there- 
fore quite overlook your statement that you did 
not speak to Mr. Saabye about your letter from 
Elly Hansen. I consider likewise your affirmed 
disregard of the danger it represents, to be false. 
You have talked to your father about the letter, 
and asked him to help you out with 1000 kroner. 
Yes, and I also venture to state that you un- 
[ 86 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
dertook to make this visit of reconciliation with 
the understandable and human motive of getting 
your foster-father to help you out of the delicate 
situation which the lady had caused. You have a 
hasty temperament. Your late father had also a 
hasty temper. An old wound has been opened up, 
and all this has happened after the house-keeper 
has gone to bed, and directly before you and your 
father retired. As the house-keeper’s bedroom is 
out by the kitchen, she has heard nothing of the 
bickering. 

“But you realize that you have gone too far, and 
see clearly that you will not get the money for Elly 
Hansen, and that the new breach will at any rate 
temporarily make it difficult for you to ask your 
father for any kind of financial assistance. 

“I will skip the intermediate happenings and 
only emphasize the fact that you are the only male 
person in the house when your foster-father was 
murdered. You know the combination of the safe. 
You know that there is money in it. You know 
where the murder instrument, the razor, is kept. 

“The door cannot be opened by a stranger, and 
all the keys have been proved to have been in the 
house. The telephone call has been shown to be 
false. Your terror-stricken flight, however, is a 
fact, to which is joined the nicked knife with which 
[ 87 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
you cut the burglar alarm wire. Your bloody 
coat and handkerchief, your bloody gloves and — ” 

Jorgensen stopped a moment and laid some 
money down in front of Lange — “these bloody 
notes which were found in your coat pocket.” 

Lange shook his head in pained bewilderment. 

“It is all like an evil dream,” said he, “but you 
forget or rather overlook a somewhat essential 
thing.” 

“What?” 

“You constantly emphasize that I am not insane, 
but who but an insane person would have commit- 
ted this murder in such an unheard of and idiotic 
manner? Besides it would be ridiculous for me 
to steal the money which would be mine anyway 
after my father’s death. As the sole heir to quite 
a large fortune, it would have also have been quite 
easy for me to have borrowed a thousand kroner 
for Elly Hansen — even the day after.” 

“If I am forgetful,” Jorgensen resumed, “you 
are no less so. You are not the first example of 
the logical criminal who has built up the whole 
deed so very carefully and who in the instant when 
he stands face to face with his crime forgets all 
and everything through very horror and only flees.” 

“I’m no criminal!” insisted Lange hotly, 
“neither logical nor illogical.” 

[ 88 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

66 You still deny everything in spite of all evi- 
dence; in spite of evident guilt?” 

64 Yes, I deny having any knowledge or participa- 
tion in this murder.” 

44 Thanks, that’H do,” sneered the District At- 
torney, and winked at the recorder as if to say, 
“Hurry it up a little.” 

The record was read for the accused in furious 
haste. He corrected it in various details. The 
prosecutor sat and glared at him, half surprised, 
half angry. He had never seen the like of such 
impudence, and in an amateur. 

“Out with him!” He motioned to the prison 
guard. 

The man opened the door for Lange. The win- 
dow in his anteroom was open. The fresh, frosty 
air streamed into the close and empty place with 
its flickering night lights. The noises of the street 
came up to them; the measured music of a detach- 
ment of soldiers. 

The sweeping tones of the “Internationale.” 

Einar Lange stopped suddenly on the threshold, 
and stood motionless and listened. His eyes were 
closed. They all looked at him in surprise. He 
turned quickly on his heel, and went into the court 
room again quite over to the bar. The District 
Attorney was putting on his overcoat. 

[ 89 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“What the Devil is the matter with you?” 

“I have some information to give,” said Einar 
Lange, “which I ask be affixed to the register. I 
have already told you about my supposed dream 
last night. Now I know that I also heard music, 
and the piece that was played was the ‘Inter- 
nationale,’ and without doubt on a piano.” 

The testimony was entered on the record. 

“I don’t believe a word of it,” uttered Jorgen- 
sen, “but I will be no less zealous about having it 
looked into — The next time we meet, I hope, for 
your own sake, that you have changed your tactics.” 

Einar Lange was brought back into custody. 
When he was alone in his cell, he went completely 
to pieces, and wept like a child. 

Even Ada Stock’s defence of him had been full 
of doubt as to his innocence. They all condemned 
him beforehand. Both people and the law! 

And he wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t! 

Or had he in a fit of insanity — ? 

He shuddered from cold and horror. He was 
bewildered. He could do nothing; but merely sat 
with his dying destiny between his shaking hands, 
and was unable to breathe warmth or life into its 
soul. 


[ 90 ] 


CHAPTER IV 


A RNE FALK turned down Helgolands 
Street. It was about eight o’clock. The 
snow fell again. He glanced up towards 
the comer where the Stocks lived. All the win- 
dows were dark except one where the light burned 
low, as if in a sick room. He had heard that Ada 
Stock had suddenly become ill after the court ex- 
amination. He felt so sorry for her. He knew 
this outwardly cold type of woman who could go 
around with an aching heart and a conventional 
smile on her lips. 

She also considered Lange to be the murderer 
just as the law and the whole city did. The evi- 
dence was too overwhelming, and people had had 
less cause for killing a man than Einar Lange had 
had; he who would have gained a fortune and a 
bride, and warded off an overhanging danger by 
his crime. The motive had been very clear. The 
unusual clumsiness about the execution of the deed 
must simply be put down to the fact that Lange 
had after the murder become horror-stricken at 
his deed. 


[ 91 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

It was all as clear as sunlight. One only won- 
dered at such a hopeless denial. Falk had a 
slightly different opinion. It seemed quite ob- 
vious to him that the case was far more difficult 
than appeared upon the surface, but if he doubted 
Einar Lange’s guilt, yes, even his participation in 
the murder — then it was because his experience 
led him at once to the band who in the spring and 
summer had committed so many trackless rob- 
beries, and who had eluded the police so success- 
fully. 

Their gain had happened to be comparatively 
small, but it could not be denied that their opera- 
tions had been conducted in a manner so traceless 
that it pointed to the direction of a high criminal 
intelligence. 

What if this band was in back of the whole 
crime? Falk easily perceived how fantastic his 
hypothesis was, but if Lange was innocent, which 
he was almost inclined to think, then this band’s 
criminal cleverness was the only one that Falk 
could consider on a par with the mystery of the 
crime. 

Some one greeted him and stopped. It was In- 
spector Jensen-Skandrup. 

“Good evening!” he shook hands cordially. 

“How goes it?” 


[ 92 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Tonight he is to be confronted with the body,” 
said the Inspector. “That’ll make him talk all 
right. We put something of the dramatic into it, 
you see. Most all of them fall for it. Besides, 
he’s admitted that he knew the will was unchanged 
in spite of the bad feeling between him and 
Saabye. His foster-father had told him that him- 
self, so he shows there what he did when he — well. 
But you haven’t heard the latest. You remember 
his fairy-tale about a dream with a hand and a 
light and some noise. To tell the truth, I don’t 
believe a word of it. But I’ll be damned if it 
hasn’t turned out to be an actual fact. Some of it 
at any rate.” 

Falk smiled: 

“So you believe in that too?” 

“Yes, I pretty nearly have to. We have gone 
into the matter, and it has been shown, first, that 
the moonlight at the time the murder was commit- 
ted really did shine through an opening in the cur- 
tain, and fell on the writing desk as he said. But 
the noise could be at least satisfactorily explained 
by the razor being put in the vase on the writing 
desk shelf. And the hand could have been his 
own — eh — eh ? ” 

“Did you also clear up that rushing and roaring 
he spoke about?” asked Falk. 

[ 93 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Yes, barely an hour ago; it sounded a bit fishy 
but now it is as clear as brandy.” 

“And what was it then?” 

“Music.” 

“What music?” 

“Well, he suddenly thought of it this afternoon. 
It was this here — what — d’you call it — Inter- 
nationale.’ ” 

“And you have substantiated that he had or 
could have heard it?” 

“Yes, that’s just what we have. There is only 
one little peculiarity about it?” 

“And what’s that?” asked Falk. 

“We inquired about,” explained the Inspector, 
“both in No. 10, 12, 14 and the house on the back 
and side, and there is really one of the musical 
ladies or gents there, but still only one — who plays 
the ‘Internationale.’ She lives, by the way, in 
No. 10, the house next door.” 

“And that one?” 

“Insists that she played the tune at a quarter to 
twelve, at which time she closed the piano and 
went to bed.” 

“That is, a full half hour before Saabye was 
murdered — and before the murder instrument 
could have been put in the vase.” 

[94] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Yes, just! The lady has a mantel-piece clock 
that was wound up three days ago and is absolutely 
correct. 

“Well,” Jensen-Skandrup continued, “I don’t 
know what you think. But I think that the whole 
story is just something that the fellow has cooked 
up to bewilder us. And it is clearly nothing but 
thoughtlessness that made him drag this music into 
it — I don’t believe that the money is burned either. 
He found some place all right on his way to Stock’s 
where he could hide it. Burning several thou- 
sand kroner! There is a limit, by God, to how 
idiotic a person can be.” The Inspector was quite 
indignant at the thought. 

“I am of the same opinion as you,” nodded Falk. 
“The money was not destroyed.” 

Jensen-Skandrup swelled like a pouter pigeon. 
Falk had through various experiences become his 
very ideal of a detective. 

“We two, eh?” he grinned. “We can solve any- 
thing. If we have time enough.” 

“Apropos, time!” Falk stopped abruptly but 
continued again: 

“There is always somebody at the house?” 

“Yes, of course.” 

Falk nodded genially. 

[ 95 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Well, I must be going.” 

Jensen-Skandrup raised his hat absent-mindedly, 
and looked after him for a long time: 

“He has something or other up his sleeve,” 
he mumbled half regretfully, half wonderingly. 
“Another wild goose chase! He’s full of sur- 
prises, that fellow. Heaven only knows what he 
meant by ‘apropos, time’!” 

The Inspector drifted grumblingly into a res- 
taurant and ordered his dinner — and ruminated 
about Falk — . 

The latter had already turned down Isted Street 
which he followed almost to the corner of Saxo 
Street. A couple of houses from it he stopped and 
went into a plain, unpretentious rooming-house. 
He had got the idea after the court examination 
that perhaps Elly Hansen could put him on the 
track of something, or rather she was the only 
point of suspicion in so far as she could have been 
the cause of the crime. If Lange, that is, had had 
something to do with it. 

She lived on the second floor in a three-room 
flat. The door knob was brightly polished. Falk 
rang and waited. No one came. He repeated 
his ring but still nobody came. He was about to 
give up for the time being, when he heard some one 
[ 96 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
below carefully open the street door, and creep 
quietly up the stairs. There was something so 
very cautious about the footsteps that he became 
suspicious. A man was only so careful when he 
did not wish to meet any of the people of the 
house. 

Falk leaned over the banister. The cautious 
one was a small humpbacked man. He was 
nearly at the first landing now. By the light of the 
dull gas jet, Falk could see his face, and recog- 
nized it at once. The cobbler from Saxo Street. 
He had been very quiet during this past year but 
the year before he had been very well known to 
the police. It was said that he’d got religion. 
Just now, however, something beside pure Chris- 
tianity shone out of his unshaven face. It was un- 
deniably a bit sinister. 

Falk went up to the next landing. A passing 
street car luckily drowned his steps so that the 
other could not hear them. Falk silently blessed it. 
The cobbler stopped on the second landing, and 
knocked softly on Elly Hansen’s door. What in 
the deuce was he doing down there? When no 
one came to the door he rang. Four short rings. 
A certain pre-arranged signal? But still no one 


came. 


[ 97 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk heard him mutter several blistering oaths. 
What under the sun did the cobbler want of Elly 
Hansen? One of her cavaliers' he certainly was 
not! She had — or at any rate had had — a well 
cultivated taste for comfort and a filled pocket- 
book, and was not hindered by that romantic, 
protective idea which made so many of the city’s 
fly-by-nights dependent on a lover of their own 
status in society. 

Falk was silent as the grave. The cobbler rang 
once more. Then the street door opened, and he 
heard some one come up the stairs humming cheer- 
fully, pass the first landing and go on. He looked 
down cautiously. It was Elly Hansen. He saw 
her stop on the landing, and regard the cobbler 
with an almost hostile look: 

“What do you want here?” he heard her burst 
out. “Didn’t I tell you once and for all not to 
be following me around?” 

The humpbacked gnome bowed in artificial 
humbleness. 

“I know you are mad with me, Elly,” he ad- 
mitted. “But I am, after all, your own brother, 
and I must speak with you.” 

“About what?” Her tone was still cold but she 
talked in the same low voice as her brother. 

[ 98 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“It’s so hard for father and me to get along,” 
he whined. 64 We don’t know which way to turn, 
and we have hardly a bite to eat.” 

“Well, what’s that got to do with me?” 

“I thought maybe that you — ” 

“Didn’t I make it clear last time? I’m not going 
to help you any more. I’ve other uses for my 
money.” 

“I’ll have to talk to Nielsen then,” and her 
brother straightened himself suddenly. His glit- 
tering black eyes gleamed evilly. 

“I don’t know where he is,” said Elly frostily 
and turned to open the door. 

The cobbler placed himself in the way. 

“You’d better find out pretty quick,” he snarled 
threateningly. “Or else — ” 

“Or else — else — ” she said scornfully. 

“We must use other means!” 

“You bum!” She glared at him. “Do you think 
Nielsen is afraid of you? Of you?” 

“I can make him afraid,” her brother smiled 
wickedly. 

She pushed him to one side. 

“All right, all right! Beat it.” 

“Then we may hope that very soon — ” 

“Yes, I’ll tell him to look you up but I haven’t 

[ 99 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

seen him since yesterday afternoon. Good-bye.” 

She slammed the door in his face. The cobbler 
looked at it with a malicious smile. 

“I’ll get the best of you yet, old girl,” he whis- 
pered hoarsely and spat. “You slut!” 

He went noisily down the stairs. Falk followed 
him. The cobbler’s close relationship to Elly 
Hansen opened up unthought-of possibilities. A 
crook who played religious was capable of any- 
thing. Such was Falk’s belief anyway. 

“What if the cobbler — !” 

He dismissed the thought hurriedly. 

In that case, he would not have been in such dire 
straits as was evidenced from his begging from his 
sister. It was quite another thing, though, if he 
had some connection or other with the real crim- 
inal. 

Just at present, the grounds for suspicion were 
rather weak. Any one of the city’s thousands of 
crooks could just as well be implicated in the mur- 
der as he. But Falk followed him anyway. 

The cobbler turned down Saxo Street, and dis- 
appeared in his cellar. Falk waited until he saw 
a light lit in the room back of the shop. Then he 
knocked and went in without waiting for an an- 


swer. 


[ 100 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The cobbler popped up in the doorway at that 
instant like some dwarf of the underworld. 

“Who is it?” he asked harshly. 

Falk stepped into the belt of light that was 
thrown by the lamp on the table. 

“It is I,” he said. “Good evening. It is quite 
a while since we have had one of our little 
chats.” 

The cobbler stood as if rooted to the threshold 
and barred the way to the back room. 

“This is an honour, Mr. Falk,” he purred, “but 
my poor father is sick. It rests in God’s hand, 
His almighty hand, whether he will ever arise from 
his bed of pain.” 

“Is he as stewed as all that?” smiled Falk and 
pushed the cobbler merrily but firmly aside, and 
went into the back room. A grunting sound came 
from the darkness where the cobbler’s bed stood. 

Falk lit a cigar. 

“So your old man is still hitting the booze?” 

The cobbler despondently shrugged his shoul- 
ders. 

“I try to hide it from the eyes of the world. 
God forgive me!” He folded his hands. “His 
flesh is still sinful, but the Lord Christ will save 
him.” 


[ 101 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Don’t you think a temperance cure would be 
better?” 

“I believe in the Lord,” chanted the cobbler. 
“He who knows all has both refuge and salvation 
for a worthy old man.” He bent down over his 
father. 

“Shouldn’t we rather say a worthy old scoun- 
drel?” said Falk coolly. “But you have become 
converted?” 

“I have sought the Lord Jesus and I have found 
him,” brayed the cobbler. 

“But does it bring in any cash?” Falk still 
smiled. 

“A man whom His Majesty — ” grunted the old 
man from his comer “ — whom His Majesty shook 
hands with — ” 

“Has your father had an audience lately?” 
asked Falk. 

The cobbler did not seem to understand : 

“Father is a little childish,” he said with a syr- 
upy smile. 

“He is!” exclaimed Falk, inwardly wondering 
at a childishness that had led its possessor from 
one prison to another. 

“You see His Majesty — God save him — was 
once on a visit through the coops — the prisons! — 
[1021 


TWO DEAD MEN 
and met father and shook his hand — and he 
can’t — ” 

“How touching,” said Falk. “What prison was 
it?” 

“Ah, humanity is but weak. But the Lord God 
is a merciful judge,” exclaimed the cobbler 
piously. 

“Last night you weren’t so holy. Things weren’t 
running so very smoothly then.” 

The cobbler bowed his head in remorse. 

“The spirit is willing,” he said, “but the flesh 
is weak.” 

“What were you doing out on Osterbro so late? 
It was eleven thirty.” 

The cobbler looked up in surprise. 

“I wasn’t on Osterbro last night. I haven’t set 
foot there in the last two weeks.” 

“Oh, yes, it was you,” insisted Falk, “but maybe 
it was a little later than eleven thirty.” 

“You were mistaken,” protested the other. 
“The old man and I sat at Nikolajsen’s from nine 
until closing time at twelve o’clock. That was 
mostly for father’s sake,” he added with sham con- 
cern. “I don’t go there very much myself but 
one has some responsibility, and he is helpless 
when he has had too much.” 

[ 103 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Does he live with you?” 

“No, he has a room in the attic that goes with 
the basement here, but he often rests down here. 
For he is old and weak. Ah, the world is, indeed, 
sinful.” 

“What does he live by?” asked Falk. 

The cobbler tried with no success to appear un- 
concerned. 

“Oh, the ‘Army’ helps him a little, and then 
he helps me in the shop now and then. But that 
doesn’t amount to much. Still the Lord, the Al- 
mighty — ” 

Falk interrupted him quietly. 

“Look here, I always respect the instinct of 
self-preservation no matter how filthily it may be 
masquerading. Whether it’s in crime or religion. 
But I also wish to have my intelligence respected 
or my instinct. Whatever you wish to call it. 
And it tells me: First, that this nauseating cloak 
of religion is a sham. Secondly, that you are in 
the game again. Your protests are superfluous. 
I know very well that your lungs can’t stand it. 
But the law can’t either, and one of these days 
you’ll get it, but until then I’ll give you a chance. 
There is a case that I’m interested in. Can you 
guess which?” 

The cobbler did not try to play stupid. 

[ 104 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“The murder case last night,” he said sullenly. 
His piousness had utterly slipped from him. 

Falk nodded: 

“I hope and do not believe that you yourself 
had anything to do with it. But perhaps you have 
heard something or other. You move just as I 
do — in certain circles. And they are a little more 
open to you. In other words, there is some money 
to be made.” 

The cobbler reflected a moment. His voice 
dropped as he said oilily: 

“I’ll do the best I can. Of course, it’s a dirty 

5* 

He stopped suddenly and listened. A cautious 
knock was heard outside of the shop. The cob- 
bler opened the door to the kitchen and smiled 
crookedly. 

“If you will be so kind as to step this way?” 

“Do you expect ladies?” 

The cobbler smiled again. “I am but a man, 
thank the Lord.” He still stood with his hand on 
the knob of the open door. A gust of cold, 
clammy air filled the room. 

“I hate back stairways,” said Falk. “I’ll close 
my eyes as the ladies go by.” 

The cobbler closed the kitchen door. For a 
moment he was clearly nonplussed, but as the 
[ 105 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
knocking continued, he turned sullenly, and hur- 
ried out in the shop. 

Falk heard him open the door and exclaim with 
disappointment: 

“Is it only you, Nielsen? I thought it was Jen- 
sine.” 

Falk went out in the shop. As he did so he saw 
the man whom the cobbler called Nielsen throw 
the cigarette butt he was smoking up on the street 
and tramp into the shop, rubbing his benumbed 
fingers. 

He started as he saw Falk, but merely greeted 
him with a sullen pull at his slouch hat, and 
lounged into the back room while the cobbler, bow- 
ing humbly, ushered Falk out and locked the door 
behind him. 

The light from the street lamp fell on the snowy, 
icy sidewalk. A cigarette butt lay there, the one 
Nielsen had thrown away. It had such a unique 
look that Falk bent over and picked it up, looked 
at it in surprise and put it in his pocket. 

“I’ll be hanged,” he murmured thoughtfully 
and cut across the street to Nikolajsen’s Cafe and 
went in. 

The little, smoky place with the sanded floor, 
the beer advertisements on the walls, and the red- 
[ 106 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
checked tablecloths was nearly empty. Some of 
the neighbourhood’s “messieurs des femmes” were 
playing pool in the next room. They were in 
their pink striped shirt sleeves, and wrist watches 
gleamed golden on their fat, pale wrists. Nikolaj- 
sen watched the game with interest until he no- 
ticed Falk. The latter ordered whiskey. 

“Well, well, good evening, Mr. Falk.” He 
rolled over to his distinguished visitor smiling his 
welcome. “To what do I owe this honour? A 
hit of a chase, eh?” 

Falk shrugged. 

“Life is nothing but a chase, Nikolajsen.” 

Nikolajsen laughed in assent: “So ’tis, by 
Gawd! So ’tis!” 

“I also took a little run over to the cobbler’s,” 
Falk told him. “He comes here quite often, doesn’t 
he?” 

“Yes, he gives me all his trade.” 

“He had a nice jag last night, eh?” 

“A little bird must have told you that. But it 
was mostly the old man. I could hardly get him 
out although it was after twelve. He can’t carry 
a load like he used to.” 

The host shrugged his shoulders in compassion- 
ate disdain. 


[1071 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“No, it’s not given to all of us to last as long as 
you, Nikolajsen. You’ve got it down to a 
science.” 

“B’ Gawd, so I have,” boasted the host. “But 
I’m no spring chicken any more.” 

“And they started in the middle of the after- 
noon?” continued Falk visibly impressed. 

“The cobbler and his old man,” protested Nik- 
olajsen, “didn’t get here until nine thirty but then 
they did get busy.” 

“Then they actually sat here for two hours and 
tipped the bottle?” 

“Yes, you can bet your boots they did. They 
crooked their elbows all right. But we made an 
evening of it too. And the cobbler soon forgot 
his religion.” 

Falk lifted the shade and looked out. 

“Are you afraid of the snow?” and motioned 
to the waiter. 

“Two shots here, Severinsen.” 

“Yes, I hate a snowstorm,” nodded Falk. 

From the window where he sat, he had when he 
lifted the shade a very good view of the cobbler’s 
cellar. Quite often while enjoying his second 
drink, he peeped out from behind it. But he was 
not afraid of the snowstorm. He was waiting for 
Nielsen, the printer. 


[ 108 ] 


CHAPTER V 


W HEN the cobbler had locked the door 
behind Falk, he went sullenly into 
the back room where Nielsen waited 
for him, smoking a fresh cigarette. 

His dirty fingers seemed to caress it as he took it 
from his mouth, to remark with a sarcastic smile: 

“Well, you’ve had a visit. A visit by law and 
order.” 

The cobbler fidgeted. 

Suddenly the other’s smile became icy and his 
voice cold and cutting as he said: 

“Look out, don»’t bum yourself!” 

The cobbler protested: 

“I’d no idea he was coming.” His sullenness 
had changed to humble and eager explanation. 
There was something so strange about this Nielsen. 
One felt insignificant beside him. It was as if he 
could read all your thoughts. 

“You didn’t!'” said Nielsen scornfully. 

“No, I tell you. And I was expecting you any 
minute. So if I had been going to get the bulls, I 
would have had him come at some other time.” 
[ 109 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“But it’s a dog’s life,” he added, “and maybe it 
wouldn’t be a bad idea to have a surer way of 
making a living.” 

Nielsen smiled poisonously. 

“Yes, maybe! Elly tells me that you’re dissat- 
isfied with me.” 

The cobbler looked away: 

“It’s only that it’s so devilish hard to get along,” 
he muttered, “and the four or five jobs we’ve 
pulled off together didn’t get us much.” 

“No, because you’re so thick and didn’t use 
your head. When a fellow is out on a job and 
there’s 2000 kroner in a bureau drawer, it’s the 
usual thing to open the drawer and nail the money 
— The last time you were drunk and nearly 
spoiled everything. I’ve no use for drunks. I’d 
sooner lay low. I have kept my promise. 
You’re the one who’s broken the contract.’’’ 

The cobbler looked up in sudden resolution. 

“That makes no difference,” he said. “We 
have worked together and you must help me now 
or we’ll starve to death.” 

“You have your religion,” mocked Nielsen, “and 
your stool pigeons. You’ll get more pity too if 
you’re not too fat. No one will starve to death in 
this country if he’s sufficiently pious.” 

The cobbler stared at him. His voice rose to 

[ 110 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
a growl as he said: “If you won’t help us, I’ll go 
elsewhere.” 

“Where, may I ask?” Nielsen was visibly 
amused. 

“To the gentleman you saw a little while ago,” 
threatened the cobbler, egged on by the other’s 
scorn. “He’s a man who’ll pay big for some 
good dope.” 

Nielsen calmly knocked the ashes off his cigar- 
ette. 

“I make no threats, Hansen. But if you ever 
do say anything concerning me to this man, I 
advise you to look around for a grave at once. 
For God strike me dead, if I don’t kill you.” 

Nielsen had got up from his seat and his eyes 
blazed so behind his glasses that the cobbler began 
to shake. 

“I didn’t mean just that,” he mumbled, and 
offered the printer his hand. “You and I are 
pals.” 

Nielsen seated himself again. He was pale 
with excitement and did not seem to notice the 
cobbler’s outstretched hand. 

“You forget, too,” he continued more calmly, 
“that you have a couple of years to your credit — 
and your lungs. Even at the best, you too would 
have to rot in jail.” 


cm] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The cobbler nodded humbly: 

“I know it, Nielsen. I know it. It was only 
that I was so upset — ” 

‘Til give you a ten-spot,” said the other shortly 
and began to search through an old worn wallet. 
He handed the cobbler a crumpled bill. “I can’t 
spare any more.” 

The cobbler looked at it disappointedly but did 
not dare to ask for more. His father turned over 
and grunted. But the son did not notice, only 
stared at the bill, then suddenly took his eyes from 
it and put the note in his pocket. 

Nielsen had not noticed his face. He sorted 
some of the papers in the wallet. Then he closed 
it, put it in his pocket and stood up: 

“Good night,” he said and was about to go. 

The cobbler fawningly shook his hand. 

Suddenly he asked: “Have you cut yourself?” 

Nielsen looked at him in surprise: 

“Cut myself?” 

“Yes, or had a nosebleed?” 

“Are you fooling?” sneered the other. “What 
in hell makes you think I’ve cut myself or had a 
nosebleed??’ 

“Let’s see your hands?” leered the cobbler. 

Nielsen held them out in the lamplight, ostenta- 
tiously willing. 


[ 112 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Don’t you want to see my belly too? Or my 
legs? 

“What in hell’s name is the matter with you?” 

Nielsen drew his hands away as if he had burnt 
them. 

“Why do you ask if I have cut myself?” 

“‘Because there is blood on the bill,” grinned 
the cobbler. 

“Nonsense!” Nielsen grew quite pale. 

“Nonsense,” he repeated, “let’s see it.” 

“So that you’d swipe it from me,” the other 
smiled craftily. “No, we won’t play that way.” 

The printer shrugged his shoulders but said 
nothing. His eyes did not leave the cobbler’s ill- 
shaven face for one instant. 

“You feaw Elly last night, didn’t you?” re- 
marked the other quietly. 

“How do you know that?” 

“Elly told me herself.” 

“Maybe she lied.” 

“And why should she lie?” the cobbler’s smile 
broadened. 

“I don’t know,” said Nielsen* evasively. 
“Women often lie for the sake of lying.” 

“Yes, and men,” nodded the cobbler, “usually 
have weightier reasons than that.” 

He filled his pipe, lit it, and calmly seated him- 

[ 113 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
self on the edge of the bed as if it was a matter of 
course that they would continue their conversation. 

“You were at Elly’s last night then?’ 1 ’ 

“What business is it of yours?” 

“And between eleven and twelve?” grinned the 
cobbler unabashed, and went on quickly without 
waiting for an answer: 

“Did you read about the murder last night? A 
lot of money isf said to have disappeared.'” 

Nielsen pulled his hat over his eyes. 

“I must be going,” he said. 

“If there is blood on any of it,” continued the 
cobbler, “the fellow that took it had better watch 
out.’*’ 

Nielsen smiled wickedly. 

“What is the meaning of all this nonsense? Is 
it your honoured belief that the money I gave you 
is from the mysterious safe?” 

The cobbler had suddenly become silent. 

“Or that it is me that killed him?” continued 
Nielsen. “If I had I would be better off than I 
am now. Come, what do you say?'” 

“I didn’t mean anything,” grunted the* cobbler. 

Nielsen nodded curtly. 

“And the better it is for you,” he said and went 
out in the shop. “Stick to your religion. That 
hurts nobody, — And remember what I said before : 
[ 114 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
No tricks! Or I’ll cure you of the talking habit for 
life.” 

The cobbler opened the door for him. When 
the other was half way up the steps, he whispered : 

66 Wash your fingers better! There’s blood un- 
der your nails!” and quickly slammed the door. 

Nielsen stretched out his hand in the lamplight 
and gazed at it. He heard a mocking laugh from 
the cellar. He shook himself, put his hands in 
his pockets, and lounged down towards Isted 
Street. 

Just then a man came out of Nikola j sen’s Cafe. 
The street was white and deserted. It was there- 
fore more than difficult for him to follow the printer 
without his knowing it. The man waited until 
the printer had turned the corner of Isted Street, 
then he hurried after him. 

It was Arne Falk. He stopped at the comer 
and saw Nielsen stop outside of Elly Hansen’s 
house and look up at her lighted window — then 
open the street door and lock it behind him. 

On the other side of the street, Falk discovered 
a book-seller’s window that interested him deeply, 
and none the less because from there he had a fine 
view of the place where Elly Hansen lived. Her 
windows were the only ones in the whole house 
that were lit up. Then he saw the printer’s 
[ 115 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
shadow slip past the window shade’s yellow sur- 
face, with an apparently excited gesture. 

What the deuce was happening up there? 
Now the light went out. In the frosty air of the 
quiet street, sounds travelled quickly. Falk heard 
the door up there open and hurriedly shut again, 
and the foot-steps of some one coming down the 
stairs. Steps that he seemed to know! He 
slipped over to the street door which was sud- 
denly opened by — Preben Miller! 

He recognized Falk at once. 

“Good evening. What are you sniffing around 
for?” 

“1^’m getting some fresh air,” laughed Falk, 
“and you?” 

“I’ve just visited a mutual acquaintance of ours 
— Miss Elly Hansen.” 

“But the idyll was interrupted?” smiled Falk. 

“Beg pardon?” Miller looked at him in sur- 
prise. 

“Isn’t the lady engaged to a printer called Niel- 
sen'?” 

Miller slipped and dropped his stick: 

“By Satan, but it’s icy here! — How the deuce 
do you know him?” 

“I was, you might say, introduced to him last 
fall down at the cobbler’s.” 

[ 116 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“The cobbler’s?” 

“Yes, one of those Saxo Street birds.” 

“I haven’t had the honour,” complained Miller 
smilingly. 

“Nielsen, however, I have met several times. 
He’s not just what you might call attractive.” 

“He’s jealous, perhaps.” 

“It looks as if he is.” Miller lit a cigarette. 

“May I have it a moment?” asked Falk. 

Miller gave it to him in surprise. Falk began 
to compare it with the cigarette stub that Nielsen 
had thrown away: 

“They are both Sunkas,” he said and showed 
them to Miller. They stood under a street light. 

“Where did you find that butt?” asked the 
writer. 

“Nielsen threw it away as he went in the cob- 
bler’s place.” Miller whistled softly. 

“Now I understand why I always miss cigarettes 
when I visit Elly. She simply grabs them for 
him. I’ll just put a stop to that! They cost too 
damn much to be wasted on a bum like him.’ 1 ’ 

They had gone some yards from the house. 
Falk stopped: 

“I’m going the other way,” he said, “good 
night.” 

“Good night.’ 1 ’ Miller sauntered down the street. 

[ 117 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk stood still and lit a cigar. Then he loitered 
over to the other side of the street. A sign over 
the door advertised the fact that there was a pay 
telephone within. By looking in the directory he 
found that Elly Hansen had a telephone, and from 
the telephone booth nearest the door he had a fine 
view of her house directly across the way. He 
asked for her number. “Hurry, please,” he 
added. Several seconds passed. Then a light 
was lit in the house across the street, and he saw 
Elly Hansen — as a fleeting shadow on the shade — 
pass the window on the way to the telephone. 

“Hello,” Falk made his voice sound rough. 

A clicking hello came from the other end of 
the wire. 

“Is this Miss Elly Hansen?” 

“Yes,” The voice was more reserved now. 

“Is Nielsen there?” 

Falk heard something like a smothered scream. 
She must have been frightened at something or 
other. Her voice shook, too, as, in response to 
his repeated question about Nielsen, she countered 
with a question as to whom she was speaking. 

“This is one of his friends, Printer Petersen.” 

“There must be a mistake somewhere. I don’t 
know any one named Nielsen.” 

Falk heard her slam down the receiver. He 

[ 118 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
looked out. The light still burned in her room. 
He waited about half a minute and then again gave 
her number. 

“Line’s busy,” Central answered. 

Falk gasped. She had then instantly called 
somebody up! Unless the remarkable coinci- 
dence had happened that she herself — just at 
this instant — and so late at night — had been called 
up. This latter theory he was disinclined to be- 
lieve. 

Some mpmerits passed. Falk tried again to 
get her number. But Central still reported 
“busy.” She was certainly having a long conver- 
sation. Or perhaps she was constantly ringing a 
number up trying to get connections. 

“And why?” 

Falk was not in doubt about that. It was his 
questioning about Nielsen that had frightened her. 
His standing probably wasn’t in the best order 
either. His friends were bad, and his “trade” 
was no doubt worse. He was probably both a 
crook and an “Alfonsl” which did not coincide 
with the description that Falk had received in the 
city of Elly Hansen, who never burdened herself 
with that kind of connection. On the other hand, 
Miller’s description of him was not to be mis- 
taken. Only Falk had never before in his practice 
[ 119 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
encountered Nielsen. But there had to be a first 
time both for him and the printer. Maybe the 
police knew of him! 

Falk rang up headquarters. The officer on duty 
answered, and hej gave him Nielsen’s description 
right from the slouch hat to the yellow front teeth 
and the eye glasses. 

“Look and see if you have him up there,” said 
Falk, “and ring me up at my home in a couple of 
hours — no, I won’t be home until then.” 

The officer promised he would. Falk hung up. 
Now he saw the light go out in Elly Hansen’s win- 
dow, and was about to leave his post when he sud- 
denly had an idea and again took up the receiver. 
This time he gave a new number and quickly got 
an answer: 

A sleepy voice boomed: “Hello, who is it?’*’ 

“This is Falk,” said he: “Just now I am in a 
house in Isted Street on the odd number side. Its 
a pay station and next to the corner of Saxo Street. 
Hurry down here, Holm. I need you for a piece 
of well paid night work.” 

“In ten minutes,” promised the other, “I’ll be 
there J” 

Falk stood in the doorway and waited. It was 
still dark, in Elly Hansen’s flat. Heaven only 
knows why she had denied all knowledge of Niel- 
[ 120 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
sen? He had an instinctive feeling that he was at 
the beginning of the solution of the riddle. And 
yet he saw clearly the utter fantasy of connecting 
the printer, about whom he knew nothing, with 
this murder. But still — 

Now and then a policeman passed the door 
where Falk stood. Occasionally a roistering 
company staggered through the quiet street filling 
the frosty air with giggles and squeals. 

Then Falk heard hurrying footsteps approach 
and stop outside the door, a short undersized man 
came in, lifting a bowler hat. It was Holm for 
whom Falk had telephoned. 

“Watch that house over there until tomorrow 
morning. I will send you a relief then. If the 
person I am interested in should leave the house, 
follow him and telephone me where he has gone.” 
And Falk described Nielsen. 

“Don’t know him,” said Holm. “But he shan’t 
get away. I know this section through and 
through.” 

Falk gave him some cigars. 

“They make the hours go faster. Itf’s cold out 
and you’ll have to walk up and down all night. 
I’d stay over on the other side of the street, too. 
Good night!” 

The man disappeared. Shortly after Falk 

[ 121 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
stepped out and hurried over to and down Saxo 
Street. It was pitch-dark in the cobbler’s cellar as 
he passed it. The street was deserted. 

Falk turned down Vesterbro Street. It was bit- 
terly cold. He stopped outside of No. 12 and 
looked up at Saabye’s windows. Pitch-dark! He 
took out some keys and opened the street door. 

He turned on the light and hurried up the stairs. 
The door of the murdered man’s apartment was 
unlocked. Things were being made as easy as 
possible for the “eventual” murderer, if he was 
some one other than the arrested Einar Lange. 
For criminals are often said to be attracted to the 
scene of their crime. 

Falk smiled. Now and then he was a little mis- 
chievous. He looked at the unlocked door with- 
out opening it and waited until the light below 
snapped out. He waited still a few seconds 
and then carefully took hold of the door knob, 
turned it, and stepped stealthily into the dark 
corridor. 

At the same instant the light from a police flash- 
light hit him in the face. He cried out a 
merry “Caught!” and turned on the electric light. 
The policeman, who faced him and whose duty it 
was, to guard the flat, grumbled disappointedly 
but then smiled almost instantly. 

[ 122 ] 


Well, I 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“So it wasn’t the murderer this time! 
guess he’s up behind the bars all right.” 

“The murderer would never have lit the 
hall light,” Falk instructed him. “The real mur- 
derer, that is!” 

The officer closed the door and they both went 
into Saabye’s study. 

“I’m going right away/’ said Falk. “I just 
wanted to see what time it is — by the dead man’s 
watch.” 

The officer placed the watch before him. Falk 
examined it; an old gold watch with an open face. 
It was sixteen minutes of twelve. He turned it 
over and took out his pocket microscope. It was 
only the work of a few seconds. 

“Now, I’m sure of my point,” he said and 
handed the man the watch. “I’ll just use your 
telephone a second.” 

Falk asked for the police headquarters, and 
got the officer on duty: 

“Did you have this Nielsen?” he asked. 

The answer was in the negative. 

“We know nothing at all about him.” 

Falk hung up. 

“If I were you,” he said to the officer. “I’d lie 
down and take a nap. “There’ll be no murderer 
here tonight.” 


[ 123 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The policeman looked at him in surprise. 

“How do you know that?” 

“From the watch there,” smiled Falk. “But I’m 
going home to sleep, good night.” 

When the officer was alone, he curiously picked 
up the watch and examined it. It was the case 
that Falk had been most interested in. The man 
looked at it for a long time but finally put it ir- 
ritably aside: 

“There is a little dent in the middle of the case. 
That’s all I can see, and, Lord, but this is tire- 
some.” 

The official hand of the law yawned so that his 
very jaws creaked, and sat down to wait for the 
coming of the murderer, whom he might expect 
if Lange was not guilty. But he was firmly con- 
vinced that Lange was. 


[ 124 ] 


CHAPTER VI 


T HE cobbler came out from Nikolajsen’s 
Cafe. It was about three o’clock in the 
afternoon. He had been in to get a 
couple of bracers. They warmed one up. 

Since the affair of the ten kroner bill the night 
before his brain had been in constant activity. 
And the result of his cogitations had been gain, no 
matter which way he turned it! Whether he 
squeezed Nielsen whom he never could stand, and 
who must have had his finger in the Saabye mur- 
der — or whether he told Falk all, and made money 
on this, and got Nielsen, that cheeky scoundrel, in 
trouble and made things hot for Elly for whom he 
had a deep-rooted hatred. Stuck-up and mean 
Elly had always been towards him— her own blood 
brother! 

Well, things were in great shape now! 

The whiskey had in the meantime, turned him 
to the tenderer feelings, or maybe it was the fear 
of the prison, the prison that his lungs could not 
tolerate; it was true his conscience was not abso- 
lutely snow white. And then too the police, — that 
[ 125 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
bunch of farmers — they were so brutal, even with 
a pious man. 

No, the best way to settle the matter was by am- 
icable adjustment. Although the Lord knew that 
he wished for a chance to get back at his sister 
and her sweetheart. 

“Go easy, Thorvald Hansen/’ he impressed on 
himself time after time. “That pays best, too. 
And, who knows, maybe, there will be a chance to 
pay back — but all in good time.” 

Well satisfied, he turned the corner of Isted 
Street and saw a fashionably clad gentleman dis- 
appear into the house where Elly lived. He 
waited a bit and stole after him. 

“The devil!” He stood irresolute a moment. 
Then he suddenly saw a whole new opportunity in 
the stranger’s visit. Just to get rid of him, her 
brother, she would give him money. Nielsen’s 
turn would come, too, later on. And he would 
make her open the door too. He would simply 
use the danger signal. He would begin by ask- 
ing for Nielsen and then start his game. 

Yes, that was the way to do it. Now that he had 
something on Nielsen, he would be high and 
mighty if they dared treat him as they had before. 

He crept up the stairs, and listened outside the 
door for a few seconds. Nielsen was in there. He 
[ 126 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
heard his voice as she opened and shut the door for 
him. Of the stranger he heard nothing. Had 
Elly got him out of the way? Nielsen was so ter- 
ribly jealous. 

The cobbler’s heart pounded. Nielsen was a 
hard nut to crack. But it was as easy to jump into 
it as to creep. He rang. Then he gave the danger 
signal. Four short rings. That worked. Some 
one stirred. Elly opened the door clad in a Jap- 
anese kimono, and smoking a cigarette. She drew 
him in hurriedly. 

“What is it?” she asked in an anxious voice. 

“I must speak with Nielsen,” said her brother. 

“Nielsen isn’t here,’'’ she answered and stood in 
his way as he tried to get in the room. 

“I have company,” she explained. 

He was perplexed for a moment. Why did she 
deny that Nielsen was there. He himself had 
heard him speak a few seconds ago. 

“Tell me where I can get in touch with him 
then,” he insisted. “I’ve something very impor- 
tant to tell him.” 

The cobbler did not seem to be aware that he 
had forsaken his original plan. He only clung 
to this one; to talk with Nielsen. He barely un- 
derstood his own tactics. Perhaps he merely fol- 
lowed them because he saw that they seemed to em- 
[ 127 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
barrass Elly. And why did she not tell him to 
be more quiet although he spoke very loudly? 

Suddenly he heard Nielsen’s voice from within. 

“Let him come in. I’ll be there in a couple of 
minutes.” And he heard the door to the bedroom 
open and shut. 

Elly showed him into the living room. 

“You mustn’t talk so loud,” she whispered. 
“The stranger is in there. He is one of Niel- 
sen’s acquaintances — of his prosperous days,” she 
added as she saw her brother’s incredulous 
look. 

The cobbler sat down. The twilight deepened 
in the little room where the air was heavy with 
cigarette smoke. A leaping and blazing fire 
burned in the stove. The cobbler sighed in in- 
voluntary contentment, but then thought of the 
coming tilt with Nielsen — and of the peculiar 
stranger. 

In the room here he had been cautioned to whis- 
per out of consideration for Nielsen. “Acquain- 
tance — from his days of prosperity — hm!” But 
out in the corridor he had been able to shout and 
yell as much as he liked without his sister even try- 
ing to get him to talk in a lower tone! Who could 
the stranger be? 

There was something so secretive about all this. 

[ 128 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
Besides he was — the cobbler — sailing under a 
false flag. Nielsen would certainly rave when he 
heard this proposition. What could Nielsen be 
doing? He asked his sister about it in a whis- 
per. She stood by the door to the bedroom as if 
to make sure that he didn’t go in. 

“It’s the stranger,” she said. “He’s seeing him 
off.” 

Shortly afterwards they heard some one go out 
in the kitchen and open the door, and then they 
heard Nielsen’s voice: 

“Good-bye. See you tonight then.” 

Then steps down the stairs, and the slamming of 
the front door. 

The cobbler stood up. His knees shook. Just 
then Nielsen appeared in the doorway. He had 
on his dirty suit of clothes as usual, but on his feet 
an elegant pair of shoes. Thorvald Hansen no- 
ticed these at once and connected them immediately 
with the bloody ten kroner note, with Saabye, and 
with a sudden prosperity, with a “job” from which 
he — in spite of golden promises — had been ex- 
cluded. 

There came to him at this moment sufficient bit- 
terness for the attack. 

Nielsen’s eyes gleamed like knives behind his 
glasses: 

[ 129 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“What do you want?” he asked and remained 
standing by the bedroom door. 

“It’s something very important. I must talk 
with you — alone.” 

Nielsen looked at him a moment, and opened 
the door to the bedroom. 

“Go in there then,’ 1 ’ he said to Elly who obeyed 
at once. 

The cobbler saw how untidy it was in there. 
The door of the clothes closet was wide open, and 
a heap of clothes had been thrown into it pell 
mell. Elly shut the closet door at once but left 
the door to the living room ajar. Nielsen did not 
notice it, and the cobbler said nothing. If Niel- 
sen proved refractory Elly could hear it all, and 
then she would be sure to advise him to give in. 

“It’s about this matter of the bill yesterday even- 
ing,” began Hansen. “I’ve been thinking it over.” 
Nielsen nodded in ironical comprehension. 

“And now you have come to the holy conclusion 
that it is your duty as a citizen and a religiously 
moved soul to take the police in on your dis- 
covery.” 

“Yes,” nodded the cobbler unsuspectingly. 
“Of course, I wouldn’t say that it was you I got 
it from. Just as if you in reward for all your 
kindness — ” 


[ 130 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

He stopped suddenly. There was something 
about the other’s look that made him shudder de- 
spite the fact that he merely looked at him and 
smiled. 

“You still think, then,” and Nielsen cut right 
through his masked threat, “that I had something to 
do with that dirty affair?” 

“Of course, I don’t think it,” said the cobbler in 
a low voice. “If I thought that I would never go 
to the police with that bill. But I’m a poor man, 
I have hardly enough to put in my mouth.” 

“The police won’t give you a red cent for your 
crazy ideas.” 

“No, but Falk!” 

There was a pause. 

The cobbler’s eyes did not leave the other’s face. 
He had noticed how Nielsen started when Falk’s 
name was mentioned. Now he was figuring out 
something or other. But the cobbler stuck to his 
post. 

“Have you the bill?” asked Nielsen suddenly. 

The cobbler smiled warily. 

“Yes, but hidden in a sure place with a few 
lines attached to it explaining how I got it. In 
case, you see, anything should happen to me.” 

“It is quite clear to you, I suppose,” said Niel- 
sen slowly, “that it will be very unpleasant for me 
[ 131 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
to get mixed up in this affair so much more be- 
cause it will harm a friend who once did me a 
favour. Whether he has anything to do with the 
murder, I haven’t the slightest idea. But this I 
do know, that though I’m nearly broke, I would 
offer you a few kroner rather than risk — What 
will you sell it for?” 

“Did your ‘friend’ present you with those shoes 
then?” the cobbler interrupted. “They must have 
cost a lot.” 

“He loaned me the money for them if you wish 
to know,” Nielsen warded off impatiently: 

“How much do you want for the note then? 
Shall we say 15 kroner?” 

“They got away with 4000 up at Saabye’s,” 
said the cobbler calmly. “I will sell the bill for 
half.” 

Nielsen raised his eyebrows. 

“I don’t feel like joking. How much will you 
sell it for?” 

“It’s no joke. I want 2000 for it.” 

Nielsen took him by the arm: 

“No more play acting,” he sneered : 

“You can get 20 — or go to hell!” 

The cobbler tore himself away, and backed to- 
wards the bedroom door: 

“Twenty kroner! You’ll have to beat that. You 
[132] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
can blow a little more on a guy who did a rich 
man in. Especially when he is one’s dear friend! 
Or near relative. For is it possible that it could 
be your father’s son: Nielsen the printer? Eh?” 

“You shall have 40 kroner,” promised Niel- 
sen. He was very pale and could hardly control 
himself. 

The cobbler laughed scornfully. 

“Forty kroner! I want 2000! Get me? 
That’s cheap enough to duck a life sentence. And 
when you give me the money, I am not only your 
friend but your accomplice.” 

The bedroom door opened slowly and there 
stood Elly, very pale and trembling. She stared 
at Nielsen. 

“What is it he is saying about you? What is 
it? Tell me, please. You are no murderer, no? 
You are no murderer?” 

Nielsen calmed her: 

“No, of course! It is only your honourable 
brother, drunk as usual.” 

The cobbler grunted, scornfully superior. 

“But the bill he is talking about?” asked Elly 
quickly. 

“That’s one he got somewhere in town, I don’t 
know where.’*’ 

“Lies! Lies!” mocked the cobbler. 

[133] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Nielsen turned on him with lightning swiftness. 

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll — ” 

“Murder me, too, heh?” grinned the other 
evilly. “Take care of your hands this time, and 
wash them carefully so that there’s no blood under 
your finger nails.” 

Nielsen swayed, white with passion: 

“He’s lying! It’s a lie!” 

Elly stepped over to her brother. 

“When was he killed, this one you’re talking 
about?” 

“The night before last between half past eleven 
and twelve,” he triumphed. 

Elly started but controlled herself and said: 

“Nielsen was here a little before nine and all 
night.” 

“You didn’t remember right then yesterday 
afternoon,” grinned the cobbler. “Then you told 
me that you hadn’t seen Nielsen since the day be- 
fore yesterday.” 

“No, I remembered right enough but it wasn’t 
any of your business where he was.” 

The printer had become somewhat calmer. 

But his hand trembled as he lit a cigarette : 

“Now, you think that over until tonight,” he said 
to the cobbler. “I am going out to Enghavevej to 
a meeting. At 12 o’clock, I’ll be at the corner of 
[134] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
Vesterbro Street. Then you can get 40 kroner for 
the bill, unless, of course you prefer to tell tales 
out of school about it. And now, get out!” 

The cobbler did not move from the spot. 

“Didnft you hear me?” growled Nielsen. 

“Yes, but I’m waiting for you to come to your 
senses.” 

Nielsen reflected an instant, seemingly weighing 
it pro and con. 

“You’ll get 40 tonight,” he said, “and 60 in 
the course of the month.” 

The cobbler shook his head. 

“Going up, I see — 40 and 60 make 100. But 
half of 4000 is 2000.” 

“Get out of here,” snarled the printer. 

“I’m going when I feel like it,” said the cob- 
bler with a superior air, — “besides they’ll get you 
soon enough — ” 

Nielsen turned on him like a sudden thunder- 
storm : 

“You damned hound!!” 

His fingers closed viselike about the cobbler’s 
neck. The latter was about to choke when Niel- 
sen threw him to the floor, pounding his head on it. 

“You hound! You hound!” he snarled and 
kept his hold on the other’s neck. 

There was a rattling in the cobbler’s throat. 
[135] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The blood swam before his eyes, and sparks 
leaped before them. With a last despairing effort, 
he tore himself away, and bit at the other’s hand 
but failed to reach it. 

Nielsen did not notice it. He stood and wiped 
his sweaty forehead. There was an expression 
of deep disgust on his face. 

Elly had put her arms around his neck. She ca- 
ressed him as one would caress a wronged child. 
Her eyes became black with disgust and rage as 
they rested on the cobbler. 

“You beast,” she sneered, “and such a cur is 
one’s own brother!” 

The cobbler was at the door in one leap, tore 
it open and ran out into the hall. 

“I’ll get even with you for this!” he cried, quite 
beside himself, and slammed the door and sham- 
bled down the stairs. 

The slam of the door seemed to wake Nielsen. 

“I must change my things,” he said and gripped 
the knob of the bedroom door. “This calls for 
quick action.” 

“You did it then?)” Elly whispered hoarsely. 

He nodded. 

“You are the murderer then?” It was as if 
she froze as she said it. 

He nodded again. 


[ 136 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

She suddenly threw her arms around his neck 
and kissed him hungrily. 

“I love you,” she moaned. “Nothing in the 
world shall come between us — murderer!” 

He tore himself violently away and pressed his 
handkerchief to his lips. She had bit him. A 
thin stream of blood ran down his chin. 

She stood devouring him with her eyes. Her 
nostrils quivered. Her breast heaved. Her eyes 
shone behind her tears. She had an animal-like 
beauty in that moment. And he saw it, but still 
he turned away with a frown and said: 

“Haven’t I once and for all told you to cut out 
that kind of nonsense. It is that kind of foolish- 
ness that — ” 

The telephone rang. 

They stood very still and stared at it as if it 
was a door about to open for some horror; a 
mouth that was about to utter a message of mis- 
fortune. 

The fire crackled loudly in the stove. A roar 
came up from the street as a trolley car passed. 
Some one came up the stairs, and let himself in 
somewhere. A door slammed behind him. Sev- 
eral seconds of silence went by. 

The telephone rang again. More loudly. De- 
manding an answer. 

[ 137 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Answer it,” he said to her, “but let me hear 
who is speaking before you ring off. One can 
never know — ” 

She picked up the receiver. Her hand shook. 
It could be an absolutely commonplace call but 
both were convinced that it was the contrary. 

“Hello,” she said. 

“Is this Miss Elly Hansen’s?!” some one asked. 
She seemed to know the voice. “I should like to 
speak with Nielsen.” 

She gave him the receiver hurriedly. The 
question was repeated. 

“Say he is out travelling and won’t be back un- 
til tomorrow morning,” whispered Nielsen to her 
and gave her the receiver. 

The person thanked her for the information. 
She hung up. 

“It was he who called me up last night,” she 
said nervously. 

Nielsen frowned. 

“What the devil could he want me for?” he 
mumbled to himself. 

“Did you know his voice?” she asked fright- 
ened at his expression. 

“Yes, it was Arne Falk.” 


[ 138 ] 


CHAPTER VII 


F ALK sat with the receiver to his ear. He 
was talking with Holm, one of the de- 
tectives who had watched Elly Hansen’s 
house during the night. 

“And you are sure that this Nielsen has not left 
the house?” 

“Yes, absolutely sure!” 

“And the man who relieved you?” 

“He’s with me now in the pay station right 
across from the house. He relieved me about 9 
o’clock this morning. He hasn’t seen the printer 
either.” 

“Keep on watching,” ordered Falk, “and fob 
low the instructions I have given you.” 

He hung up and turned to his secretary, former 
chief clerk Johannes Willing, who, stiff as a ram- 
rod, and conservative as an old family servant in 
a novel, was typing the thesis for a doctor’s de- 
gree on which Falk had been working for the past 
year — a work on criminology and medicine. 

“Put that rot aside,” Falk shocked the middle- 
aged gentleman by proposing. “What does 
[139] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
Goethe say, that old aristocrat, about theory and 
practice. When one has a red-hot case to play 
with, a doctor’s thesis is dead and of no account. 
That is to say, comparatively. Besides, no one 
escapes his fate in this country. If you will hand 
the faculty a nice, thick book, you become a doc- 
tor. It doesn’t matter much what’s in the book.” 

Willing nodded without clearly understanding. 
He always nodded when Falk began his paradoxes. 
It was no use to argue with crazy people. What 
was the use? 

Willing waited expectantly. Since the famous 
Borck murder affair, he had almost lived in a 
fools’ paradise with Falk, for the latter’s time had 
wholly been taken up by research work, and the 
like. But now it was all over. 

Why couldn’t people stop killing each other — 
and especially in such a cunning way that even 
the police found it impossible to discover who the 
murderer was? He sighed discreetly. 

Falk began to sum up the case: 

“A murder is committed, the motive apparently 
as clear as day. A young man, hitherto unbe- 
smirched, is suspected of it, and arrested. An ex- 
convict has what is in his circle a great rarity, 
namely a friend who as yet has not graced the 
rogues’ gallery. Last night I saw this friend — 
[ 140 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
Nielsen the printer — go up to a girl’s flat. A girl 
who stands in a certain relation to the murder al- 
though not a criminal one. With the aid of my 
own and my two agents’ eyes, I substantiated that 
the man was and still is today in the flat with the 
fair accomplice — do you follow me, Willing?” 

The secretary nodded with hypocritical interest. 
He knew that Falk appreciated a good listener. 

“But now a remarkable thing occurred,” con- 
tinued Falk. “Nielsen the night before last had 
gone up to the girl, Elly Hansen. Barely half 
an hour after I ring her up, and ask her if I can 
find Nielsen there. 

“The lady becomes frightened, denies any 
knowledge of the printer — who, according to Mil- 
ler, is her daily visitor, and hastily rings off. As 
I see that the light in the room where the telephone 
is, is not extinguished I ring her up again a half 
minute later, and Central tells me the line is busy. 

“Wherefrom I conclude that immediately after 
my telephoning, she has called some other number 
and told the person of my query and asked him or 
her for advice. But whom has she called up who 
has her confidence to such degree that she can 
ask his advice in such a delicate matter as that of 
Nielsen’s — who? 

“Well, it’s no use falling into a trance about 

[ 141 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
this riddle. Let’s rather move forward to the next 
one. About a quarter of an hour ago I telephone 
the girl again. This time she doesn’t deny know- 
ing the man, but tries to pull the wool over my 
eyes by saying he is travelling, which is absolutely 
impossible. The eyes of my agents are sharp 
enough. 

“She has probably been instructed to say that,” 
ventured Willing. 

“Yes, by Nielsen himself,” nodded Falk. 
“You see, he must remain inside the house. I, 
too, have my special reasons for wanting him to 
remain there for the present.” 

The front door bell rang. 

“It is Preben Miller,” said Falk. 

And it really was the author. Falk heard his 
taxi drive away below. 

“We are discussing your unholy flame, Miss 
Elly Hansen. Yes, and her printer — does she 
love him, do you think?” 

“Yes, in her way,” shrugged Miller, “more’s 
the pity.” 

“But still she is deceiving him about you?” 

“Yes, luckily.” 

Willing moved in an embarrassed way. 

“Perhaps I— i” 

“Oh, go ahead,” smiled Falk. 

[ 142 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Was he scandalized?” asked Miller as the sec- 
retary disappeared. 

“Can you, a psychologist, ask such a question?” 
laughed Falk. “Well, she loves the two of you 
then?” 

“Yes, and I support both her and my rival. 
It’s expensive but interesting.” 

“Did you see her today?” 

“Yes, I took a little run up there. But Nielsen 
was there too, so I preferred to withdraw.” 

“Perhaps you have just come from there then?” 

“Yes, just about. A taxi went by as I came out 
on Vesterbro Street, and I hailed it and drove up 
here.” 

“About what time was it when you left there?” 

“I can tell you almost to the minute,” said 
Miller and looked at his watch. “It is eight min- 
utes to four now. It was precisely three fifteen — 
for the court house clock struck the quarter hour 
when I left the house.” 

“Did you notice anything peculiar about your 
rival today?” 

“No, only he was like an irritated terrier, as he 
always is when he has the honour of seeing me. 
And it did not put him in any better humour when 
I told him sweetly to keep his dirty fingers away 
from my cigarettes. Of course, he swore by half 
[ 143 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
a dozen various places that he had never touched 
ray 'stinking hay.’ I don’t know what he 
means by calling my Sunka cigarettes 'stinking 
hay.’” 

"Well, unfortunately I abo have the same ple- 
beian opinion,” smiled Falk. "You didn’t come 
to blows?” 

"No, he crawled in his shell again and even 
opened the door for me when I went out. Tout 
comme il faut!” 

"Did he say he was going away? Or tell Miss 
Elly anything about it?” 

"No. But that means nothing. Even if he 
were going to the very ends of the earth, he would 
try to keep it from me as long as he could. The 
dear fellow is so jealous! — But I can telephone 
her and ask. That will be the best way — .” 

"Apropos telephoning,” said Falk stopping him 
on his way to the telephone. "Didn’t somebody 
call her up while you were there?” 

Miller shook his head in denial. 

"No, that’s so too,” remembered Falk. "It was 
later I called up.” 

Miller stood with his hand on the receiver and 
was about to pick it up when the front door bell 
tinkled. He drew his hand away. 

“Some one is ringing.” 

[ 144 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Shh!” whispered Falk. 

They both listened. 

“What a pull he has,” said Falk shortly after, 
“and humble! As nauseating as a milk toddy.” 

The house-keeper knocked on the door and 
opened : 

“There’s a man who wants to speak with you.” 

“Who is it?” 

“He said just to say ‘the cobbler’: that you 
would know who it was.” 

“Show him in.” 

The house-keeper went out. 

“It’s your brother-in-law,” said Falk jocosely. 

“What!” 

“Yes, Elly Hansen’s brother. A fearful ban- 
dit. I don’t know whether you care to be pre- 
sented to him.” 

“No, God save me! I’ll go in the living room 
in the meantime.” Miller hurried in and quietly 
closed the door behind him. 

The cobbler was ushered in by Mrs. Jorgensen 
who was not visibly impressed by him. At any 
rate the closing of the door amounted to a slam. 

The cobbler literally oozed hypocrisy. He 
bowed humbly. 

“What do you want?” asked Falk ungraciously. 

“I only want to ask you something.” 

[ 145 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“And what?” 

“How a poor fellow, who has a trifle on his con- 
science and a few years on his record, would stand 
— if he can put the police on the track of a real 
criminal. One of that crowd who murder people, 
and steal thousands of kroner besides.” 

“You’ll have to ask the police about that,” said 
iFalk shortly. 

“I thought,” sighed the cobbler with feigned 
despondency as he looked around the room and 
[lowered his eyes, “that your word, Mr. Falk, had 
some weight with them, and that you were not 
afraid to help a poor devil. That is to say if it’s 
a case that interests you.” 

“There is only one case that I am interested in 
just now,” said Falk, “and I hardly think you 
know anything about that.” 

Falk did not doubt for an instant that he did. 
But he had his own methods in a case like 
this. A certain scepticism and indifference always 
egged the other on to open disclosures. Nor were 
these withheld here. 

“Now, maybe I may have heard something or 
other about that case,” ventured the cobbler. 
“That is, the Saabye murder, now don’t you think 
— I mean, it’s hard when one wants to be an hon- 
est man, to have this for a start!” 

[ 146 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“If you can tell me some facts about the case, 
I’ll see what I can do for you,” promised Falk. 

“You misunderstand me a little,” said the cob- 
bler humbly. “It’s not me, but a friend whom this 
concerns. And I don’t think he’ll agree to those 
conditions. There is too much to lose and too 
ilittle to win.” 

“In other words, he demands protection?” 

“Yes, and some money. Otherwise the poor 
fellow will die of hunger.” 

“And what will he give in return?” 

“He’ll tell who murdered the old man, and stole 
all the money.” 

Arne Falk started violently. 

“But the money was burned,” he ventured. 

“The devil they — that is, I guess, I guess so,” 
added the cobbler hastily. 

“I can offer your ‘friend’ 50 kroner,” said Falk 
and took out his wallet, “and protection.” 

The shoemaker writhed humbly. 

“It’s impossible for less than 100 kroner. He 
owes a frightful lot of money.” 

“All right, I’ll give you 100,” said Falk after 
some delay and handed him the money. “Who is 
the murderer then?” 

The cobbler took out the crumpled, blood-stained 
note of the night before and showed it to Falk. 
[147] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“It is the man who gave me this,” he whis- 
pered, and looked up warily. He had heard 
some one stir in the next room. 

“He gave me this last night. And today he 
promised me 40 kroner, and turned white as chalk 
when I talked about the murder.” 

“Who is he?” asked Falk. 

“His name is Nielsen, and he is a printer out of 
work. 

“He’s the one you saw at my place last night. 
He’s my sister’s sweetheart, and she admitted to 
me herself that he was not with her at the time 
the murder was committed. But today, she de- 
nied having said it.” 

“Why did he give you money?” asked Falk. 

“Why, that’s some he owed me,” lied the cob- 
bler brazenly. He hated unnecessary unveiling. 

“But this note is really no proof,” protested 
Falk. 

“Yes, it is, together with something else, if 
you’ll allow me,” answered the other and de- 
scribed the events which had taken place in his 
sister’s flat. 

“Then, it’s best to get hold of him at once,” 
resolved Falk. “He is at your sister’s all the 
time, isn’t he?” 

The cobbler was about to say yes when he sud- 

[148] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
denly remembered Nielsen’s offer about the rest of 
the money he was to get that evening. What if he 
could kill two birds with one stone, and keep the 
police away from Nielsen until he had the 100 
kroner. 

“No, he’s not there just now,” and he shook his 
head, “and won’t be there today either.” 

“He is travelling, perhaps?” 

“Yes, he’s travelling. I don’t know where, but 
he’ll be back tomorrow morning.” 

“When were you up there, and saw him last?” 

“About ten minutes after three. I noticed the 
time on the clock across the street.” 

This fitted exactly with Miller’s statement of 
having been at the street door at a quarter after 
three. At least the cobbler had the time at his 
finger tips! 

“Did you meet any one up there?” asked Falk. 

“No one but the printer and Elly. But there 
was a stranger there whom Nielsen showed out 
while I sat and waited.” 

“Oh, you saw him then?” 

“No, because he went down the kitchen stairs.” 

“Why in the world did he leave that way?” 

The cobbler shrugged his shoulders. 

“I don’t know.” 

“When did Nielsen go away then?” 

[ 149 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I saw him leave the house a few minutes after 
I had gone. It must have been about half past 
three then.” 

Falk took some notes now and then. He was ut- 
terly at sea regarding this trip of Nielsen’s. Niel- 
sen could not have slipped out without his agent 
knowing of it. There must have been a mistake 
somewhere. 

“Are you absolutely certain that it was Niel- 
sen?” 

“Yes, of course! I know him as well as I know 
myself.” 

As a cautious move, Falk had had the telephone 
moved to his bedroom. 

“Pardon me a moment,” he said to the cobbler 
who regarded him with barely concealed sus- 
picion. 

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid I’ll follow in your 
footsteps.” 

Falk disappeared into the bedroom. The cob- 
bler sat perfectly quiet, with his ears strained like 
a tightly stretched drum. His glance darted 
around the room seeking to discover a possible 
danger that might be concealed somewhere. 

A few minutes after, Falk came back into the 
study. He read his notes to the cobbler, and let 
[ 150 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
him verify them. An unnecessary measure, it 
would seem, for a man of his perceptive abilities. 

66 You’ll have to be on your toes early tomorrow, 
too,” said Falk to him, “and ring me up as soon 
as he comes home. Don’t oversleep now — and if 
you cheat me — ” 

The cobbler swore a frightful oath as to his 
honest intentions. Falk showed him out himself 
— out of consideration for Mrs. Jorgensen. 

When he came back into his room, Miller sat in 
the chair by the writing desk, smoking his indis- 
pensable “Sunka.” 

“Well, what did my ‘brother-in-law’ have to 
say?” he asked smilingly. 

“He told me something about our mutual friend 
the printer — By the way, does Lange know him?” 

“I don’t believe so. I think Nielsen made 
his debut into Elly’s life after the break with 
Lange. — Didn’t you leave the room here a few 
minutes? I thought I heard the door open and 
close.” 

“Yes, I was in the bedroom to telephone to 
Holm to shadow the cobbler. Afterwards, I de- 
tained the fellow a bit so as to give Holm time to 
get up here.” 

Miller whistled comprehensively. 

[ 151 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“What did he have to say about my friend the 
printer anyway?” 

Falk told him: 

“And he also insisted that Nielsen was away 
on a trip today.” 

“Well, we can ring Elly up and find out for 
sure if it will interest you. Poor girl, this must 
be an uncomfortable afternoon for her.” 

“I would like to get her out of the place,” ad- 
mitted Falk, “in order to have the flat searched.” 

“I’ll try it,” granted Miller, and asked for her 
number. “Although it’s a kind of treason to her 
and — hello,” he cut short his moral scruples: “Is 
this Elly? This is Preben speaking. Is Nielsen 
there? Oh, he’s gone, has he? Well, that’s fine 
— Shall we go out together this evening? Well, 
then just as you say — I’ll be home in the course 
of a half hour — then I’ll expect you — au revoir.” 

He rang off. 

“Poor girl!” he said, shaking his head. “I 
could hear that she was quite beside herself. But 
I must be getting along. Good-bye.” 

Falk retained his hand in his: 

“Does this woman really mean anything to 
you?” 

Miller gave a shrug. 

[ 152 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“There are some people,” he dogmatized, “who 
live by virtue of their shortcomings. I think that 
I am one of them.” 

“Because it is not yet altogether clear that she 
is not implicated in Nielsen’s affairs.” 

“She knows nothing whatsoever about them,” he 
assured the other. “And as for me — don’t worry. 
If the worst should happen, and she should get 
into trouble, and she really means something to 
me, I have a revolver home in my writing desk! 
A life of sorrow is not worth the living. Even 
happiness is not perfect.” 

Just then the telephone rang. 

“I’ll go out by myself,” said Miller. “You an- 
swer it.” 

Falk nodded shortly, and picked up the receiver. 

It was his agent, Holm, calling: 

“Elly Hansen has just left the house,” he re- 
ported. 

“But Nielsen hasn’t shown up yet?” 

Falk heard Miller slam the outside door. 

“Is there a Yale lock on the door to the flat?” 

“No, an ordinary lock.” 

“Well, you just let yourself into the place, and 
find out if the printer is there. They say, how- 
ever, that he left half an hour ago.” 

[ 153 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“That is simply impossible. We have watched 
go carefully that he couldn’t possibly have slipped 
out unnoticed.” 

“Do you think that the lady has had any visitors 
today?” 

“Yes, your friend, Mr. Preben Miller went up 
there about three o’clock, but only stayed there 
about half an hour.” 

“A quarter of an hour,” corrected Falk. 

“No, it was precisely half past four when he 
came out of the door for I noticed the time by the 
clock at the coffee dealer’s here. And the court 
house clock struck the half hour also.” 

“AH right, first see to it that the place is 
searched. If you find the printer there, you don’t 
have to worry about his calling for the police. 
But be careful anyway. Ring the bell first — four 
short rings.” 

“All right, we will do that.” 

“By the way, was Elly Hansen carrying any- 
thing?” 

“Yes, she had a small satchel with her.” 

“Hm, all right.” 

Falk rang off, and lit a cigar. He heard Will- 
ing moving around in his room upstairs — Mrs. 
Jorgensen throwing coal in the stove in the living 
room — the storm howling outside. 

[ 154 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk tried to go over the whole case — detail by 
detail — but improbabilities cropped up one after 
another. 

How had Nielsen gotten into Saabye’s house 
that night? Where did he learn about the com- 
bination to the safe? And, lastly, how had he, 
who, to all appearances, was an amateur in the 
criminal game, managed to operate so tracklessly, 
so soundlessly, and create this net of evidence 
which was closing in on Einar Lange. 

Unless he had — and everything led away from 
that — been an accomplice of the young artist, who 
in any case had not killed Saabye. Or of any 
person who had a close knowledge of the dead 
man’s habits and rooms. The last was, when all 
was said and done, the most plausible. But the 
same person must also have known of the rela- 
tions existing between Saabye and his foster-son. 
Had known that the latter was to stay there that 
night, that the money for the rent had not been 
brought to the bank, that Lange slept very heavily, 
etc., etc. 

The only one who knew all this, and whose pres- 
ence in the house at the time of the murder had 
been proved was the arrested Einar Lange — and 
the house-keeper! 

Falk did not continue his deductions. The idea 

[ 155 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
of the house-keeper as the murderer or the mur- 
derer’s accomplice was and remained ridiculous! 
And she was — theoretically — the only one, upon 
whom any suspicion could fall. She and Lange! 

Perhaps the printer, Nielsen, was the murderer? 
Falk had no other proof of it than the bloody 10 
kroner note, which could have become bloody in 
many other quite different ways — Thorvald Han- 
sen was no marked disciple of the truth. 

And it was queer about that hour that both Mil- 
ler and the cobbler put at a quarter past three but 
which Holm and his aides had declared to be half 
past three. For Miller must have known when he 
left Elly Hansen, particularly, as he had looked 
at the clock across the way. 

On the other hand — oh, well, life was full of 
mysteries! Falk smiled. The Lord knew what 
the result of Holm’s “burglary” would be. 

The thought had hardly crossed his mind when 
the telephone rang. It was Holm. He was up in 
Elly’s flat and had searched it from end to end 
without finding anything of interest. The kitchen 
had been locked on the inside with the key in the 
lock when he came up there: 

“Nielsen was not there!” 

Holm’s colleague had at the same time — and 
also without result — examined the kitchen stairs 
[ 156 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
and the ,court. It was quite incomprehensible, 
this about the printer. Particularly as he had to 
go out by the street door, and because he was 
neither well known nor looked up to by the neigh- 
bours, in which case he could have taken refuge in 
one of the near-by houses. 

“Stick it out another 24 hours,” said Falk en- 
couragingly to the somewhat crestfallen detective. 
“Let your partner watch the house, and meanwhile 
find out what you can about Elly Hansen. Try 
especially to find out where she was the evening be- 
fore last between 9 and 12, and whether any one 
has seen Nielsen in that space of time, and where. 
If you can get me some information about the 
lady’s life and habits, do that also. But don’t 
give up.” 

Just then Mrs. Jorgensen knocked on the door, 
and opened it. 

“Dinner is ready,” she said. 

Falk rang off, and hurried into the dining room. 
He was ravenously hungry. Willing was already 
there, waiting for him. They sat down in silence. 
Falk did not reply to Willing’s conventional re- 
marks and questions. He only ate — and pon- 
dered. 

At last it was too much for the secretary. He 
had spoken to Falk without any answer: 

[157] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“You are extremely pensive, Mr. Falk,” he 
finally said a bit stiffly, “would it be impertinent to 
inquire why you are so preoccupied?” 

“Not at all,” smiled Falk, as if suddenly coming 
to. “Fm grappling with a surface wound, a nicked 
knife, a dent in a watch, and a quarter of an hour, 
and they won’t come right.” 

Willing asked no more questions. 


[ 158 ] 


CHAPTER VIII 


T HE court house clock struck midnight, and 
sang its deep, metallic psalm over the 
freezing, snow-white city. The houses 
cast shadows deep and dark as the graves of 
oblivion. The streets seemed to be only strips of 
flrozen snow — narrow and wide. The lamps 
burned high and clear. 

A broad-shouldered patrolman sauntered back 
and forth before a Rathskeller obliquely across 
from the comer of Enghavevej and Vesterbro 
Street. His hands were clasped behind his 
back. He was deep in thought, and now and 
then warmed his frozen hands in a resounding 
clap, and glanced about him as if incidentally. 
The street car going towards Valby was already 
down near the “Black Horse.” Few people were 
to be seen on Vesterbro Street. It was 13 below 
zero, and people stayed indoors. 

The officer took another glance about him. A 
man came walking down Enghavevej, towards 
Vesterbro Street, huddled up in an old ulster, and 
with a slouch hat pulled down over his eyes. He 
[159] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
seemed to be shivering. The officer was also very 
cold. He did not hesitate very long, but dashed 
up to the door by the side of the cafe, and down 
into the cellar where the kitchen was. The door 
opened hurriedly to his knock. 

The tall man in the ulster had stopped on the 
comer of Enghavevej. He was evidently waiting 
for some one. He started violently when he heard 
the tinkling noise of a bell at the cafe door only 
a few paces from him, but otherwise did not stir. 

The cobbler came shivering out on the street to- 
wards him but stopped with an oath when the tall 
man drew his attention to him with a low whistle. 

The cobbler stood like a pointer scenting game, 
suddenly stretched out his arms, and drew near 
the man, saying with an assumed, hearty somewhat 
sniffling manner: 

“Oh, it’s you, Nielsen? I didn’t know you, old 
pal.” 

“I’ve got some other duds on,” smiled Nielsen. 
“I froze to death in the old ones. Let’s go this 
way.” He pointed down Enghavevej. 

The cobbler glanced at him furtively. He 
could see only part of Nielsen’s face. The rest 
was hidden by the ulster collar, by his glasses, 
and the brim of his hat. 

“Well, you got my letter then,” said Nielsen. 

[ 160 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Yes, sure I did. Anyway, we agreed to meet 
here at 12 o’clock.” 

“I only meant — ” 

“Oh, that little tussle we had,” smiled the cob- 
bler evilly. “No, a thing like that you forget, and 
besides a fellow’s got a heart after all and 
wouldn’t destroy a pal for the sake of a few cents.” 

“Have you the bill on you?” 

“Yes, I have,” said the cobbler and barely hid 
a cunning smile. He did not notice the sinister 
gleam in the other’s eyes. 

“All right,” nodded Nielsen. Now and then 
he turned as if listening for something. 

“Anybody coming?” asked the cobbler who no- 
ticed it. 

“No, no, — no one.” 

They turned down Mathaeus Street. 

“We had better go down to your place and set- 
tle the matter,” said the printer. “I’ve a few 
drops of the stuff that cheers on me. For it is a 
bit cool.” 

The cobbler’s eyes gleamed. 

“You’re a fine fellow, Nielsen.” 

“I am to my friends as they are to me,” said 
Nielsen, and added: “The old man ain’t in there, 
is he?” 

“No, he’s up in his room.” 

[ 161 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The cobbler opened the door to the cellar, and 
looked up at Nielsen who stood upon the street 
lighting a cigarette. He started violently. 

‘Til be damned,” he swore and felt a sudden 
fear. 

“What’s the matter?” Nielsen hurried down to 
him. 

The cobbler still stood staring and muttered: 

“That was the second time tonight — ” 

“What?” 

“ — that I didn’t know you.” 

“Nonsense,” grunted Nielsen, “get that door 
locked and let’s get inside and have something to 
warm us up. It’s colder than the north pole 
here!” 

The cobbler locked it while Nielsen lit the lamp 
in the back room and seated himself on the bed. 

“By the way, the bottle’s in my overcoat 
pocket. In the outer one.” 

The cobbler found it and took it out. Suddenly 
he turned fawningly to the printer. 

“Why so silent, old man?” he said but became 
afraid again. 

Nielsen sat over there in the shadow, and smiled 
in such a sinister way. 

“What are you smiling like that for?” he stam- 
mered, “and why are you wearing gloves?” 

[ 162 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“ I’m smiling,” said the other, “because I’m with 
a friend, a real friend. For you are that, aren’t 
you?” 

“Of course,” answered the cobbler, taking out a 
couple of battered cups and pouring cognac into 
them: 

“But the gloves?” 

“I’m wearing them because I’m cold.” 

The cobbler nodded reassured, and handed 
Nielsen one of the cups: “Your health, comrade!” 

Nielsen returned the toast, and shivered sud- 
denly: 

“It’s damn cold in here,” he said standing up 
and tucking the rug in front of the court window 
in more closely. 

“There’s a draft from the kitchen, too,” he 
grumbled, and went out there. But there was 
nothing to do there. 

“That rug helped a little,” he said and smiled 
his sinister smile. “You’ve got a good start al- 
ready, Hansen. Most people can’t afford that 
much hootch.” 

“Some of the fellows stood treat,” explained 
the cobbler. 

“And you smell like a night bird,” sniffed the 
printer, “but maybe ‘the fellows’ are from a per- 
fume factory — It’s Swedish Theresa’s perfume, 
[ 163 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
too, I think you told me. But she isn’t made of 
money. And money — ” 

The cobbler protested in a confused manner. 
Nielsen smiled steadily. 

64 Well, let’s get down to business,” he said 
finally, 44 and don’t forget the booze.” 

“The lamp is smoking,” said the cobbler and 
turned it down. 

“Here y’are,” said Nielsen, and took out the 
40 kroner and laid them on the table. 

The cobbler gave him a blood stained 10 krone 
note. Nielsen put it indifferently in his pocket 
without looking at it. 

“But we’re forgetting the bottle,” he laughed 
and filled the cup. The cobbler had already been 
somewhat tipsy when he came out of the cafe, and 
now he drank quickly. Nielsen tossed the empty 
bottle over on the bed: 

“There’s another bottle in my pocket,” he said. 
He had only sipped at his cup now and then while 
the cobbler was becoming more and more drunk. 

44 You’ re a fellow after my own heart,” babbled 
the cobbler, “a regular guy.” 

“Yes, wasn’t it lucky,” smiled Nielsen “that you 
didn’t snitch on me?” 

“Snitch — snitch!” The cobbler faltered a lit- 
tle but then continued virtuously indignant: 

[164] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I don’t snitch on my friends, by God!” 

“But if you were not my friend?” 

“Then I’d get in trouble, too, myself,” grunted 
the cobbler craftily. 

“Yes, if you went to the police! But if this 

Falk—” 

The cobbler strove to look unbelievably stupid: 

“If he what?” he babbled. 

“If he had offered money, and had promised 
you protection in other ways?” 

“Yes, if?” hiccoughed the cobbler. “If I had 
done anything like that you wouldn’t be sitting 
here, would you?” 

“Oh, you could have told some fish story about 
not being able to get a hold of me before to- 
morrow.” 

“And what good would that do me?” asked the 
other and held the cup to his mouth without drink- 
ing. 

Nielsen only smiled. 

“What good would it do?” mumbled the cob- 
bler both angry and frightened. “Answer me, in 
the devil’s name!” 

Nielsen winked at him waggishly: 

“In that way, you could get money both from 
him and from me.” 

The cobbler laughed scornfully. 

[ 165 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“You don’t think this Falk is so thick as that, 
to let me keep the bill, the bloody bill which is 
part of the evidence.” 

“No, but say you had done it anyway.” 

“But hell, you got it from me only a few min- 
utes ago.” 

“Yes, I got a wrinkled ten kroner note, with a 
blood stain on it. But Lord save us, such a note 
is easy to stain. Let me see your hands!” 

He suddenly seized the cobbler’s hands so the 
cup fell on the bed, and pulled him over into the 
light. The cobbler’s whole body shook. His 
face was livid. 

There was an insignificant puncture on the left 
hand! 

Nielsen laughed and let go his hand: 

“You must be cold, Hansen. Help yourself to 
the goods.” 

He handed the cobbler the flask. The latter 
put it to his mouth, and took a deep draught. 

“I pricked myself on one of the awls this after- 
noon,” he explained. 

“You did, eh? Well, it’s none of my business,” 
smiled the other. “Of course, I believe you. If 
I didn’t, all I would have to do would be to look 
at the number on the bill. For I remember it 
well.” 


[ 166 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

The cobbler took another drink from the flask. 
Nielsen had again seated himself on the bed. 

“No, I’m not afraid that any one will snitch on 
me,” he said with a low laugh. “It would only be 
a living hell for whoever did it, even if I didn’t 
kill him at once.” 

The cobbler sat and looked at him sluggishly. 

“But you’re not drinking,” protested Nielsen 
smilingly, and handed him the flask. 

The cobbler dropped it. He was swimmingly 
drunk, but fear gnawed at his vitals. 

He couldn’t endure the other’s smile. Sud- 
denly he blazed up in a sudden fit of rage: 

“What the hell are you grinning about?” 

Nielsen stopped smiling, and listened: 

“Shh!” 

The cobbler paused, but heard nothing. 

“What are you listening for?” he asked soon 
after, and seemed about to collapse from drunken- 
ness. 

“For the beating of Life’s pulse,” whispered 
Nielsen evilly. “It’s so easy for one to die, and 
to be put down in the darkness among the worms.” 

The cobbler shuddered despite his fuddled 
state. 

But then Nielsen repeated his “shh” and the 
cobbler also heard a soft scraping up on the street, 
[ 167 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
Nielsen stole over to the rug in front of the win- 
dow and put his ear to it. His face was dark but 
determined as he turned away. 

The cobbler had fallen over on the bed where 
he lay and snored. Nielsen put out the light and 
again tiptoed over to the window. Somebody was 
moving softly about the court. He heard the per- 
son stop and listen, with his hand on the window 
pane. 

Nielsen stood still as death. 

Ten minutes passed. All was still except for 
the snoring of the cobbler. He heard the stranger 
up in the court tiptoe away, through the gateway, 
out to the street. He heard his footsteps ring on 
the cobblestones. Further and further awuy. 

He breathed more easily. Still he waited sev- 
eral minutes. All was quiet in the moonlit court. 
He lifted the curtain cautiously, and peeped out. 
The court was empty. He let the rug fall back. 

He stood and reflected an instant, then lit a 
match and looked around the room. A small gas 
stove stood in the corner toward the court. He 
noted its position, and stole over to the cobbler, 
and bent over him. He had seen him put the 40 
kroner in his breast pocket. He lit another match, 
and took the notes out cautiously without disturb- 
[168] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
ing the cobbler. In the pocket above that he 
found three 10 kroner notes. 

“It has been an expensive business,” muttered 
Nielsen, and took the money. “Go to hell then,” 
and he nodded to the cobbler with an evil smile. 

The match went out. 

He opened the door to the shop in the darkness, 
and examined the window closely. No, there 
were no cracks to speak of. 

He stopped a moment at the gas stove, then hur- 
ried out in the kitchen, and locked the door behind 
him. 

“He won’t be cold now — the darling thing!” 
and he laughed silently. 

The court was still white and deserted as far 
as he could see through the frosty and dirty win- 
dows. A cat sneaked over to the gateway, and 
turned into it but stopped suddenly and went back. 

Nielsen swore softly, and pulled his hat over 
his eyes. Then he opened the kitchen door, 
locked it behind him, and went up into the court. 
However, he did not go out on the street but into the 
next court, which one could see from the gateway, 
and which together with various other courts, 
reached right down to Dannebrog Street. 

He went along apparently unsuspecting, though 

[ 169 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
cautiously. But in reality, he was listening, and 
he heard footsteps behind him. When he reached 
a connecting archway he went hurriedly through 
it, but ducked back at once and hid in its deepest 
shadow. 

Several seconds passed. Then a man suddenly 
showed himself out in the moonlit courtyard. He 
seemed to hesitate but soon after he crept into the 
archway. 

Nielsen stood ready to spring. The other had 
no idea that he was there. He slipped by, nearly 
touching the printer, but almost at the same time 
uttered a low groan. He went down with an iron 
blow from Nielsen’s fist. He lay senseless. 

“When he wakes up in a quarter of an hour or 
so,” muttered Nielsen, as he "changed part of his 
clothing in the darkness, “the cobbler will be dead, 
and from now on Nielsen the printer exists no 
more. We’ll see then whether Mister Falk can 
arrest Saabye’s murderer.” 


[ 170 ] 


CHAPTER IX 


‘TT1 HE detective bureau called up,” said 
Willing the next day to Falk. The lat- 
JL ter had appeared in the study at the un- 
usually early hour of half past nine in the morn- 
ing. 

Falk lit a cigar. 

“And what good news did they have?” 

“Unfortunately, none! The man assigned to 
follow the cobbler shadowed him all day. And 
the cobbler spent money right and left and drunk 
heavily and visited a woman of ill repute. At 
twelve o’clock on the comer of Enghavevej and 
Vesterbro Street he had met a man who went home 
with him. 

“This man left the cobbler about one o’clock and 
sneaked away through some courts that lead up 
to Dannebrog Street. The detective still followed 
him but the stranger must have taken alarm. 
Anyway in one of the darkest and deepest arch- 
ways, he,” and Willing shuddered at the thought, 
[ 171 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“took the detective by surprise and felled him to 
the ground.” 

Falk swore. 

“And of course was gone when the man came 
to his senses again,” ended Willing. 

“Who was this fellow? Was it the printer?” 

“No, the detective thought not. At any rate, 
he didn’t look like the man you described. He 
was tall and thin it’s true, but very much bent 
over and dressed quite differently from the printer. 
He had on a long worn ulster and wore a 
soft hat pulled down over his eyes. The man 
from the bureau had to go home. He hasn’t re- 
covered from the attack yet.” 

“Hm,” growled Falk, “that was a nice bit of 
news. Have you any more Job’s messages?” 

“I don’t know,” and the offended Willing 
shrugged his shoulders, “what you will call Jen- 
sen-Skandrup’s message. He rang up about a half 
hour ago. The young artist had been confronted 
by the body of his foster-father.” 

“But it led to nothing,” continued Falk and nod- 
ded. “Am I wrong?” 

“No, decidedly not. He only wept and kissed 
the old man’s brow. Jensen-Skandrup called the 
affair ‘a blurred film’ — ” 

[ 172 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“The cobbler, Thorvald Hansen, didn’t ring 
up?” asked Falk. 

Willing shook his head: “No.” 

“I should have put Holm on his trail,” said 
Falk irritably and picked up one of the news- 
papers. 

As he did so some one rang loudly out in the 
entry. An instant later he heard Preben Miller 
demand to see him at once. Falk opened the door 
to the corridor himself: 

“What in the world is the matter with you?” he 
asked — astonished. Miller was always so self- 
possessed. Falk gave his friend his hand. He 
was astounded at the other’s appearance. Preben 
Miller looked like a sick man. His face was 
ashen, he had dark circles under his eyes and his 
clothes were untidy as if he had thrown them on 
without thinking, he, who always used an hour to 
dress in. 

“What in the world is the matter with you?” re- 
peated Falk. 

“I must talk with you at once, now,” moaned 
Miller. 

Willing, who had greeted him with a stiff bow, 
withdrew discreetly to the living-room. 

“What is it, then?” asked Falk. 

[ 173 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Miller gave him a letter. His hand shook, and 
his voice trembled. “Read this!” he said, and 
sank down with his face hidden in his hands. 

Falk read: 

“Dear, dear Preben, 

“I was distressed and discouraged yesterday, and I 
would not tell you why. But now I must confess to 
you. We cannot see each other again. You cannot 
love a woman who has been a murderer’s. Yes, a mur- 
derer’s. Nielsen admitted to me this afternoon that 
he had killed a man, an old man — Mr. Saabye. He 
admitted it because my brother dropped various hints 
on the subject, and finally accused him of being the 
murderer, and because I demanded an explanation. 
Nielsen has always been my evil spirit. He has had a 
peculiar and fearful hold on me. The only consolation 
is that now I am free, though only to live in distress 
and misfortune. I, myself, advised him to go away, 
and he left the house here in disguise. I think he 
has gone to Sweden. I am in deep despair, and I ask 
you not to try to see me. Though you are the only 
one I have ever loved. 

“Your brokenhearted 

“Elly.” 

“I didn’t know she meant so much to you,” said 
Falk sympathetically, and gave him the letter. 

“I’ve tried in vain to get her to talk to me up 
to this morning,” he groaned, “but when she heard 
it was I, she rang off. Her voice sounded so sor- 
[ 174 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
rowful. I am so afraid that she, in her despair, 
will do something insane. And still, under these 
circumstances, I must do my work.” 

He looked up with a grimacing smile. 

“I must go to a first night at the Dagmar 
Theatre tonight,” he said, “and the play is a com- 
edy!” 

“Can’t you get some one else to cover the per- 
formance?” proposed Falk. 

Miller shook his head despondently: 

“That won’t do,” he said. “I’ve been behind 
so much lately in my work in the paper. But un- 
der these circumstances, it’s hellish torture.” 

Falk inclined his head sympathetically: 

“You must excuse me a moment,” he said. “I 
must report the matter to the police. I’ll borrow 
this letter for a few days, too.” 

Miller nodded again. Falk went out and gave 
Willing his instructions. A moment later he was 
back beside his friend: 

“Willing’s gone to ring up headquarters. I 
have hopes that we’ll get our hands on the printer. 
It won’t be the first time the Swedish police 
have helped us — by the way, do you know where 
Nielsen and Elly met each other?” 

“Yes, she told me herself,” said Miller in a low 
voice. “It was at a labour meeting this spring. 
[ 175 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
She had gone to it because she had never been to 
one before.” 

The ringing of the telephone interrupted them. 
It was Holm. 

“I didn’t find out much about the lady,” he re- 
ported. “She’s well liked, and for the last year 
has had no other companions than Mr. Preben 
Miller, and Nielsen. The green-grocer’s little girl 
does the cleaning, and runs errands for her. The 
evening in question she came home alone about 
nine o’clock. Shortly after that, all was dark in 
her flat. None of the tenants saw the printer there 
that night.” 

Falk hung up. 

He felt sorry for Miller, who stood by the win- 
dow with downcast head. But there was no time 
for lamentation. 

“I must go out at once,” he said. “Out to 
my friend, Thorvald Hansen! The cobbler,” he 
added as explanation, for the other had looked at 
him so uncomprehendingly. 

“Let me go along,” proposed the author. 

“Surely! But won’t it be a little painful?” 

“Ah, well, evil must drive out evil.” 

Falk called a taxi, and gave the house-keeper in- 
structions in case Thorvald Hansen should show 
up while he was away. 

[ 176 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Let him wait in here! I’ll ring up every quar- 
ter of an hour.” 

It had begun to snow when they came out on 
the street to the waiting taxi. They jumped into 
it quickly. 

“Saxo Street way down near Isted Street,” cried 
Falk to the chauffeur. 

They sat in silence for a long time. Then Mil- 
ler burst out: 

“This is terrible, this affair about Nielsen.” 

“We’ll get hold of him,” nodded Falk confi- 
dently. “In a day his description will be all over 
Sweden and Germany.” 

Miller shivered. 

“Are you cold?” asked Falk. 

“No, I shudder to think that he has been her 
lover, and that I have touched the hand which 
guided the razor across the old man’s throat. 
Murder is dreadful.” 

Falk gave a shrug. 

“We press so many highly respected hands that 
have committed murder, but are out of reach of 
the law. Or what do you say of the wealthy be- 
trayer who kills the happiness in a good but poor 
woman’s life. He exists not only in novels and 
the movies. He is right among us. Or the em- 
ployer who starves his workers. Or the parents 
[ 177 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
who neglect and illtreat their children. I could 
give you hundreds of examples. The world is 
full of murderers.” 

“But to cut off a person’s life,” protested Mil- 
ler, “to stop a heart from beating; to cause an or- 
ganism to stiffen so that it cannot function any 
more; that seems to me worse than anything else.” 

Falk grunted, and looked out of the window. 

They turned swiftly down Saxo Street. The 
snow fell faster and faster. The dirty white 
poorhouse stood there and froze. Here and there, 
in an archway, people with an out-of-work look 
could be seen; always there like the morning dew. 
They pressed themselves into the comer of the 
archway, with their hands dug down in their 
pockets, and sixpenny hats pulled over their eyes, 
bent over by the cold and dully stamping in the 
snow that blew on their legs, trying to keep the 
blood in circulation in their alcohol-soaked bodies. 

The taxi stopped with a violent jerk outside the 
cobbler’s cellar. Old Hansen stood down there 
profanely tugging away at the door knob. His 
teeth chattered with cold. 

“Is no one home?” asked Falk and told the 
driver to wait. 

“Yes, he must be there,” growled the old man. 

[ 178 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“But the door is always open at this time of day. 
I suppose the beast is sleeping.” 

“Did you try the kitchen door?” Falk asked. 

“Yeh, that’s locked too.” 

“Maybe your son has gone out?” 

“He never goes out as early as this,” and the 
old man shook his head. 

“Well, we can take a look,” proposed Falk and 
pulled a bunch of skeleton keys out of his pocket, 
and began to smile at the old man’s surprised ex- 
pression. 

“You never saw anything like that before?” 

The old man tried to look more stupid than 
usual. 

Falk opened the door at once, and went into the 
store, but stopped and sniffed the air: 

“There must be a leaky gas-pipe around here 
somewhere,” he said. 

The old man could smell nothing, and Falk 
could see that the gas jets over the door and in 
the window were both closed; they had not been 
used for a long time. The old man was tugging 
at the door to the back room. 

“That’s locked, too,” he growled harshly, “and 
from the inside; he must have had a fine load to 
carry last night.” 


[ 179 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Your son doesn’t usually lock up so carefully, 
eh?” asked Falk. 

“No, he never locked this door before.” 

Falk’s face had become grave. He hastily 
pushed the key inside to the floor and opened the 
door. 

All three jumped back several paces. Even 
the old man was almost half strangled by the gas- 
eous stench that penetrated into the shop. Falk 
quickly opened the shop door and transom. 

“Where are the gas cocks in the room?” he 
asked the old man who with difficulty stammered 
out an explanation. 

Miller had fled up to the street. His face was 
livid, and he still felt as if he were strangling, 
although the air there was icy cold. 

Falk pressed his handkerchief to his mouth and 
nose and ran into the room, and over to the gas 
stove. Yes, both cocks were wide open! He shut 
them with trembling fingers and staggered back to 
the shop. 

“We must wait several minutes until the gas is 
driven out,” he panted to Miller who again had 
come into the shop. “You’d better stay out 
here!” 

But Miller wanted to come in. The air was 
much clearer now, too. The old man joined them. 

[ 180 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
It was half dark in the room but when Falk tore 
the rug from the window the grey winter light stole 
in over the bare, dirty board-floor, the naked table 
and the battered chairs. Over two empty cognac 
bottles and some broken cups. And across the 
bed! 

The three stopped before it, gripped by the mo- 
ment’s horror. For upon a heap of dirty rags in 
it lay the cobbler’s corpse. From his position it 
seemed as if he had been seized by a sudden 
cramp. His neck hung down horribly from the 
head of the bed. His mouth was wide open with 
the tongue bulging out of it. 

They were silent for a moment. 

“He always was a dirty bum,” grunted the old 
man angrily. That was his epitaph for his son. 

“Call the police,” Falk bade Miller. “There’s 
a telephone over at Nikolajsen’s.” 

Miller hurried over. In the meantime Falk 
searched the dead man’s pockets. There was only 
a little change in his pocket. The cobbler had 
been unable to use all of the 100 kroner in the 
course of the day before. The door to the kitchen 
was also locked from the outside. To be sure, the 
key was in the lock, but Falk discovered that it was 
also used to lock the other door. The criminal 
had, no doubt, tossed it away up in the courtyard. 

[ 181 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

It was found there later. 

But who was the murderer? 

For the agent from the detective bureau insisted 
that the man whom the cobbler had met and 
who without doubt was his murderer, was not Niel- 
sen, and he was the man who would have had the 
greatest interest in getting the cobbler out of the 
way. 

Falk began to examine the room. Perhaps the 
murderer had left some clue! Old Hansen had 
sat down on one of the chairs and swayed back 
and forth, muttering unintelligible things. 

Shortly after, Miller came back. The police 
would be there at once. 

Falk had stopped before a cupboard in the shop. 
It was locked. He picked the lock. At first he 
saw only a heap of dirty rags and pieces of old 
leather. But then he suddenly noticed a Japan- 
ese paper weight, cut in the shape of a dog! And 
several other trinkets, together with a bunch of 
lock picks, and other burglars’ tools. 

“I have made an interesting discovery,” and he 
turned quickly to Miller with an air of triumph. 
“Do you remember those mysterious burglaries 
that were committed this spring and summer?” 

“Yes, certainly I do.” 

[ 182 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“A rare marble paper-weight was stolen from 
one of the places. The papers described it, and 
so hindered the thieves from selling or otherwise 
disposing of it. Here it is. The only thing I 
can’t see, is how the cobbler had the brains to 
make these raids. For they were really remark- 
able of their kind.” 

Miller nodded. 

“Still waters — ” he cited, but was interrupted 
by the hooting of a klaxon up in the street. 

“It’s the police,” he said, after looking out. 
“Our old friend, Jensen-Skandrup.” 

“Your Majesty!” they suddenly heard old Han- 
sen babble. He had gotten up from the chair in 
the back room and now stood on the threshold of 
the shop. His wasted features shone: 

“Your Majesty!” he repeated and stretched out 
his hand to the Inspector, “does me too much 
honour!” 

Then he fell to the floor and began to weep and 
moan and suddenly became uncontrollable and 
thrashed his arms wildly: 

v “Your Majesty, Majesty!” he bellowed. “Where 
is your hand — your hand, your hand!” 

“We must get him to a hospital at once,” said 
Jensen-Skandrup, turning to one of the policemen. 
[ 183 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
“That’s clear enough — he’s got the D. T.’s all 
right.” 

And then Falk and Miller continued their ex- 
planation. 


[ 184 ] 


CHAPTER X 


P REBEN MILLER, like Falk, liked to lie 
abed late. He was lying there, stretch- 
ing himself, comfortably smoking his 
“Sunka” cigarette, and apparently in the best of 
humour, when the door bell rang. 

Who could that be? 

His creditors had given up hope long ago. 
Their visits were always useless. He had a way 
of treating them that made them feel like intrusive 
beggars. And the letter-carrier — by agreement 
with Miller — never rang but threw the letters in 
through a letter slot. Money drafts never came — 
for there is something called advance royalty and 
Miller was always in advance both at his publish- 
ers and at his paper. 

It couldn’t be Elly because she had keys to the 
apartment. Nor the King’s bailiff. He wasn’t 
due until next week sometime when he would as 
usual go away with a long face. For Miller only 
rented furnished rooms. But who could it be — ! 
Miller thrust a pyjama-clad leg out of the bed. 
Could the cleaning woman have gone crazy and 
[ 185 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
come at this time about four hours ahead of time! 
He could hardly believe that. 

The ringing continued with disrespectful vigour. 
Miller’s expression was one of deep surprise. 
Well, he would open the door just enough so that 
he could — if it was a creditor — slam it in his 
face with a passing remark about bothering people 
at that time of the night. 

Then he heard a calling card being put through 
the letter slot, and the person went away and 
tramped noisily down the stairs. He waited until 
the foot-steps had died away and then stole out in 
the hall and picked up the card! 

It was a white blank card! 

He went back to the bedroom swearing softly 
and was just about to get into bed when the door 
bell rang again. If some one was trying to make 
a fool of him he would soon show them — 

In an instant he was out in the next room and 
at the door to the corridor. He opened it almost 
noiselessly. He had in his haste upset the con- 
tents of the light waste-paper basket that stood un- 
der his writing table, but without noticing it. He 
stood ready to jump and opened the door little by 
little. Then suddenly as the letter slot was pushed 
up, he heard a cheery voice say triumphantly: 

[ 186 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Come on, open up! For you are home. The 
card is gone!” 

It was Arne Falk. 

Miller opened the door in unfeigned astonish- 
ment: 

“But what is — ? I never thought you were up 
so early.” 

“Well, I am a little proud of it,” smiled Falk 
modestly: “But I have some important news for 
you.” 

“Will you come in?” They went in. “You 
must excuse me a moment. I’ll go in here and get 
some clothes on. But go ahead anyway. I’m 
all ears.” 

He let the bedroom door stand ajar. Falk 
threw himself into a chair by the writing table. 

“I’ve just come from headquarters. Lange has 
been released.” 

“Does Ada Stock know it?” 

“Yes, I rang her up myself last night. She 
came over to meet him.” 

“It was quite touching, I suppose?” 

“Yes, I admit that I was quite envious,” sighed 
Falk. 

“That’s nothing to sigh about,” said Miller con- 
solingly. “Remember what Wilde says, ‘One can 
[ 187 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
be happy with any woman — if one doesn’t love 
her’ — But how goes it with your printer?” 

“We haven’t got him yet.” 

“Was — was Elly cross-examined?” asked Mil- 
ler, stammering slightly. 

“Yes, for a long time last night.” 

Miller sighed. 

“And came through all right too,” continued 
Falk. “District Attorney Jorgensen, with whom 
I talked later, is of the opinion that she had noth- 
ing to do with either the murder or the burglaries. 
And she hasn’t seen much of her brother either.” 

“Well, thank the Lord that she came through 
all right! How did she take it anyway? For 
you saw her I suppose?” 

“She took it sensibly enough,” and Falk lit a 
cigar. “You have recovered too. You were quite 
down in the mouth yesterday.” 

“Yes, you must reason your way in a situation 
like this. I was afraid at first that she would 
commit suicide. But then she would have done 
it at once.” 

“Yes, of course! — How was the premiere last 
night?” asked Falk smilingly. He sat with Mil- 
ler’s review before him. 

“To tell the truth, I don’t know. I certainly 
had other things to think about.” 

[ 188 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

66 You weren’t especially kind either to the 
actors or to the author.” 

“Kind!” grunted Miller scornfully. “Who in 
hell can demand kindness when the critic is in 
trouble clear up to his eyes?” 

“ — Or one’s house-keeper burns the steak for 
dinner,” continued Falk mischievously; “or his 
girl has gone back on him; or the King’s Bailiff 
raids one’s house! No, of course, critics are in- 
fluenced by those things — But now you are in 
good enough humour to praise ‘Fairy Play’ which 
lies on your table here?” 

Falk stretched out his hand for the book, and 
began to turn its pages. 

“Apparently,” admitted Miller, and began to 
strop his razor on a leather strop. 

In the middle of the book, Falk came upon a 
long, golden hair — a woman’s: “I didn’t know 
that it was in the bookstores yet,” he remarked. 

“Oh, yes, I got it last night through the mail. 
With a dedication from the author. For I am 
of some importance after all,” laughed Miller. 

“Did you have any visitor last night after the 
theatre?” asked Falk. 

“No, I went home alone.” 

“I thought that you had some women friends 
here?” 


[ 189 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“No, I didn’t feel like it. All this with Elly — 
you understand. — And even if I am thoughtless, 
I—” 

“Yes, but it could have been Elly herself — ” 

“Elly? Are you crazy? I haven’t seen her 
since the night before last.” 

“Well, well. There was no offence meant.” 
For Miller’s tone had sounded somewhat irritated. 

“No, but can’t you see — ” The rest of Miller’s 
reply was lost in the noise of a passing street car. 
he had opened his bedroom windows. 

Falk knocked the ashes from his cigar, and then 
noticed the overturned waste basket. He righted 
it, and laboriously began to put the waste paper 
back in it. 

“Either you are a very industrious man,” he 
said, “or else you have a very neglectful clean- 
ing woman.” 

“Why, may I ask?” 

“Your waste-paper basket is bulging with stuff.” 

“Well, it was emptied yesterday noon.” 

“But, what in the deuce — !’i’ Falk stared in 
surprise at something that he saw under a crum- 
pled piece of cardboard, and the last of the bas- 
ket’s contents he had not yet put back: 

A broken india-rubber plate with four front 
teeth! 


[ 190 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Remarkable long, yellow teeth, that he knew so 
well. Nielsen’s peculiar front teeth had looked 
like that! 

For a moment he was overcome. Then he hur- 
riedly put the demolished gum in his pocket, and 
happened in the same instant to glance at the book 
in which he had found the long, yellow hair. 

That hair was of just the same color and tex- 
ture as Elly Hansen’s. He knew that she had 
keys to the apartment — and that Miller had been 
at the Dagmar Theatre, where the performance 
lasted until eleven o’clock. Elly Hansen had been 
cross-examined from 7 to a quarter past 8 o’clock. 

Perhaps, she — without Miller’s knowledge had 
arranged — up in Miller’s apartments — a rendez- 
vous with Nielsen, who did not dare to visit her 
at her home. The journey to Sweden could have 
been postponed. Nielsen and she could have had 
any number of things to talk about. 

In order to disguise himself, before he ven- 
tured out in a city whose police lay in wait for 
him, Nielsen could have destroyed the false teeth. 
It was certain that no one, unless perhaps Elly 
Hansen, could have had the slightest idea that 
those teeth, his most conspicuous characteristic, 
T were false. His toothless mouth would, therefore, 
be an excellent disguise. 

[191] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

And had he at the same time thrown away his 
glasses and had had a chance to change his clothes, 
he would have been well-nigh unrecognizable. 

It was, of course, unpardonable carelessness to 
have thrown the false teeth in the waste basket. 
But even the best of crooks make mistakes — and 
often concerning vital matters. The full basket, 
which Elly no doubt had told him was emptied 
every day, had probably tempted him. The plate 
he could not have burnt, as Miller would have been 
able to smell it on his arrival. 

Perhaps Nielsen had taken some of Miller’s 
clothes. For Elly could easily have disposed of 
his old ones. 

Falk opened the bedroom door. Miller was 
washing his face after shaving. The door of the 
clothes closet stood wide open. Only three suits 
of clothes hung there. 

“Is that all of your wardrobe?” smiled Falk. 

“Yes, these three suits are all my earthly pos- 
sessions. The rest are all at ‘Uncle’s’!” 

“But you’ve some old clothes?” 

“Not a single piece. There’s a second hand 
clothes dealer over in Victoria Street, and he buys 
all my old stuff. There isn’t as much as an old 
vest around now.” 

Falk looked at his watch: 

[ 192 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I must go now,” he said. 

“Oh, but wait and let us eat breakfast together,” 
protested Miller. “That’s an invitation!” 

66 — which I cannot afford to accept,” smiled 
Falk a bit sarcastically. 

“To think that you can be sarcastic — so early in 
the day.” 

Miller showed him smilingly to the door: 

“You are a queer fellow,” he said. “I’ll re- 
member that little trick with the calling card. 
You can’t fool me twice.” 

“No, that’s so, you’re not a detective,” and Falk 
disappeared with a cheery farewell. 

Elly Hansen was at her dressing table when the 
door bell rang. 

“I’m not at home,” she said to the green-grocer’s 
little girl who was mopping the floor. The girl 
hurried out and opened the door. 

“Miss Hansen ain’t home,” she heard her pipe. 

“Oh, is that so!” 

It was a man’s voice. She heard him push the 
little girl aside and step into the hall. That was 
too much. 

With one little spring, Elly was in the 
door to the hall. There was a man standing 
there: 


[ 193 ] 


I’m 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“Didn’t you understand what the girl said, 
not at home to any one.” 

“You are at home to me,” said the man 
smilingly. “No one escapes his fate.” 

Unabashed he opened the door of the living 
room, and stepped in. It was Arne Falk! She 
recognized him at once, and was afraid. 

“What do you want of me?” she asked shortly. 

“I want to give you some advice,” said Falk. 

“About what, may I ask?” She tried in vain 
to appear calm. Her eyes were anxious and ir- 
resolute. Now and then she wet her dry lips. 

“This, of telling you where Saabye’s murderer 
is to be found. We are aware that you know his 
hiding place, and that he is now here in the city.” 

“Then you know more than I do,” she said de- 
fiantly. 

“We know furthermore,” continued Falk un- 
disturbed, “that you met him last night in a house 
on old Kingsway. I don’t think I need to de- 
scribe it more closely for you.” 

She resembled a spectre as she stood there. She 
did not speak; only shook her head in a sort of 
automatic defiance. 

“The reason I am asking you to help us,” Falk 
went on, “is that your so-called printer, Nielsen — ” 
[ 194 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“So called,” she started violently but otherwise 
restrained herself. 

“Yes, so called,” repeated Falk. “For he is 
no more a printer than you or I.” 

“Why don’t you arrest him then if you know 
him?” she demanded. It was as if a light had 
suddenly dawned for her. 

“Because we need a link in the chain of evi- 
dence. A link which I ask you to give us. You 
will not regret your helpfulness.” 

“Do you want it in writing?” She tried to make 
her tone seem bantering, but her glance in an un- 
guarded moment roamed to the writing desk and 
rested on some paper and envelopes that lay there. 
Falk felt sure that something lay under there. 
But he also saw that the coincidence was giving 
him a helping hand: 

“Yes, it’s best to have it in writing, of course.” 

“I’ll think it over,” she said. “Let me have 
the pen and ink, please. I’ll go in the bedroom 
with it. I wish to be alone for a moment.” 

Falk nodded in assent and handed her the 
writing materials. “I suppose I may use your 
telephone?” 

“Yes, it’s at your service.” 

He heard the maid scrubbing the floor in the 

[ 195 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
bedroom as Elly Hansen opened the door only to 
shut it at once behind her. 

He asked for his own number. Willing an- 
swered the phone. 

6 ‘This is Falk,” he said, and heard the window 
in the bedroom being carefully closed, and some 
one tip-toe over to the door to the living room. 
The scrubbing had also ceased. 

“We are on his trail,” Falk went on. 

“Whose trail?” asked Willing. 

“All we’ve got to do is to smoke the fox out of 
his hole. We’ll know in a few minutes, just where 
he is.” 

“I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking 
about.” Willing faltered in bewilderment. 

“That’s quite all right,” said Falk and contin- 
ued, “what did you say?” 

Willing repeated his remark about not under- 
standing. As Falk still did not answer he rang off 
after a few confused hellos. 

Falk remained sitting at the telephone. Now 
and then he raised his voice as if he was answering 
a question. In reality he was listening to the slight 
noise from the bedroom where he heard Elly whis- 
pering to the cleaning girl, and then heard the lat- 
ter go out by the kitchen door. An instant later, 
the scrubbing within was resumed. He knew that 
[ 196 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
it was Elly Hansen who sought to make him be- 
lieve that the little girl was still in there. 

Falk hung up the receiver, and looked for the 
wire. It went in a sweeping curve behind the 
writing table down to the carpeted floor. He bent 
down and snipped it in two. He heard the mop 
being laid aside, inside. An instant later Elly 
Hansen opened the door: 

“Here is my confession,” she said triumphantly, 
and handed him a sheet of paper. 

The sheet was blank! 

Falk shrugged his shoulders: 

“He laughs best — ” he said. 

Just then the front door bell rang. 

“Pardon me,” he said and went out and opened 
the door. It was Holm. 

“I caught the brat down in the hall. She cer- 
tainly did howl. But I finally got the letter.” 

He gave it to Falk. Falk opened it and read: 

“My dearest one ! 

They are on your track. You must flee. Telephone 
me your future address. Your faithful loving, 

“Elly.” 

Falk put it triumphantly back in the envelope 
again, and looked at the superscription. 

“Good God!” he burst out. “I hadn’t expected 
that!” 


[ 197 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“You are not sick?” asked Holm sympathet- 
ically. Falk was quite pale. 

“No, no. You’d better go, Holm. Come up 
to my place for your money tonight.” 

“Then the case is solved.” 

“Yes,” Falk nodded and shut the door. He 
still held the letter in his hand. 

“This is terrible,” he muttered and turned 
quickly away. Elly Hansen stood behind him. 
She was like a lioness ready to fight to the death 
for her young. Her eyes gleamed; her nostrils 
quivered : 

“Give me the letter,” she hissed and grasped 
for it, but Falk quickly put it in his pocket. 

In an instant she was back in the living room, 
and had closed the door behind her. He heard 
the key turn in the lock. Falk smiled moodily. 
He heard her pick up the receiver and demand a 
number. She repeated it and repeated it. And 
always without getting an answer. 

Suddenly he heard her utter a cry of rage and 
despair, and collapse — sobbing bitterly. 

She had discovered that the telephone wire had 
been cut. She could not warn the man she loved. 

All was over, all, all — 

Falk had a great deal to do that day, and it was 
past three o’clock when he came home. There 
[ 198 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
was a telephone message from Preben Miller. 
Some one had been in his apartment the night be- 
fore. He thought it was Elly Hansen because 
he had found a long, golden hair strikingly like 
hers in the middle of a new book. But he did 
not understand what she was doing in his apart- 
ment without his knowledge. He wanted very 
much to talk with Falk about it. 

“I’ll go over to him at once,” Falk decided. 
“Then he’ll get the news first hand.” 

“What news?” asked Willing. 

“That we will have our hands on Nielsen in the 
course of an hour.” 


[ 199 ] 


CHAPTER XI 


M ILLER was working when Falk rang. 

The writer opened the door himself. 
He was clad in a silk-wadded bath-robe, 
lamb’s-wool slippers, and brightly coloured socks. 
He was, as usual, smoking his “Sunka.” 

The reading lamp was lit in the room, and a 
cozy fire crackled in the stove. Miller’s table 
was littered with books and manuscripts. 

“Excuse me for a moment,” he asked. “I must 
finish this review.” 

Falk sat down. The street cars went rattling 
by down on the street. The telephone wires sang. 
Miller’s pen scratched feverishly. Now and then, 
a piece of coal exploded in the stove. Some min- 
utes passed. Then Miller laid his pen aside, and 
turned to Falk with a cordial nod. 

“Now I am at your service. I suppose Will- 
ing has told you I called up.” 

“Yes, he told me.” Falk looked at him in a 
queer way. 

“Why do you look at me like that?” asked Mil- 
ler. 

[ 200 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk lowered his eyes but did not answer. 

“You’re not feeling top-notch today,” asked 
his friend with a smile. 

“No,” admitted Falk without looking up. 

“How is the murder case getting along?” 

“Very well.” 

“Have you found the printer?” 

“Yes,” Falk straightened up. His eyes did not 
leave Miller’s face. The other was very pale. 

“It’s warm as the deuce here,” Miller panted, 
and wiped his forehead. “Where did you get 
hold of him?” 

“Why do you ask me that?” 

“Because I am interested.” 

“Why do you ask me that?” repeated Falk with 
special emphasis on the pronoun. 

Miller, slightly confused, shook his head. 

“I don’t understand you,” he said. 

“You will not understand me,” Falk corrected. 

Miller still appeared to be surprised. 

Falk leaned towards him: 

“Or perhaps you will deny that you, Preben 
Miller, and the man Nielsen are one and the same 

05 ? 

person : 

Miller stiffened and stared. He looked old at 
that moment. 

“What do you know?” he asked hoarsely. 

[ 201 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

“I know all.” 

“All?” 

“Or so much at any rate that our Nielsen, the 
printer, will serve a life’s term in prison.” 

“For what?” 

“For the murders of old Saabye, and Thorvald 
Hansen.” 

“And you have proof of your statement?” 

Miller had regained something of his old con- 
fident manner again. 

“Certain proof! Perhaps you’ll be interested 
to hear it?” 

“Very much,” nodded the author and lit a cig- 
arette. 

“It all began with a note,” said Falk, “on the 
back of which you wrote Capt. Stock’s name. A 
mere bagatelle of 3600 kroner that was extended 
again and again, as long as Mortensen, the money 
lender, believed in your coming marriage with 
Miss Stock which you had hoodwinked him into 
believing a reality. 

“About a month ago you proposed to Ada Stock 
and was rejected. I questioned her myself today, 
and she confessed although reluctantly. At the 
time you proposed, she confided to you under 
promise of secrecy that she loved Lange. 

“And you knew what that meant to you. Some 

[ 202 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
fine day, Mortensen would demand payment on 
the overdue note. And he would simply refuse to 
extend it. He did it the very day Lange became 
engaged. You were forced to get the money. 

“First you tried myself, and your other friend. 
We couldn’t help you. Then you got the idea — 
through Elly Hansen — of blackmailing Lange, on 
the basis of his former relations with her, and his 
engagement to Ada Stock. 

“And when that didn’t work, you killed old 
Saabye. The note fell due the day after, and you 
paid it with the money you had stolen from the 
murdered man.” 

“I am really somewhat sceptical about the pos- 
sibility that I could have gotten into his room,” 
said Miller. “Everything was locked when he 
went to bed, and there were no strangers in the 
apartment. And the keys were in their place.” 

“Not when you left Saabye in the evening. The 
house-keeper’s keys were not there. You had 
‘borrowed’ them to get in with later on. But you 
put them carefully in their place again, following 
a well-laid plan. You also borrowed Lange’s 
pocket-knife, and placed it in a compromising 
place in the corridor, after first filing some nicks 
in it, which should indicate that it had been used 
to cut the electric wire in two; which was an im- 
[ 203 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
possibility due to the thickness of the wire. You, 
no doubt, cut the wire with a pair of nippers.” 

“But Lange’s bloody jacket and the handker- 
chief and gloves?” 

66 You borrowed them also. Just as you put 
the bloody notes in his pockets, and strewed some 
of them in front of the mantel-piece.” 

“Perhaps I also was the cause of his insane 
flight from the apartment?” 

“Yes, because it was you and no one else who 
’phoned him about Ada Stock’s illness.’ 1 ’ 

“When, then? We were together all of the 
time.” 

“When you went up to put your overcoat on.” 

“Really, this is all very interesting,” sneered 
Miller. “There’s only one little insignificant de- 
tail you left out, and that was that the old man was 
murdered while you and I were walking in peace 
and quiet down near the Independence Statue. But 
perhaps you think me capable of killing by hypno- 
tism?” 

“How does any one know when Saabye died?” 

“By the watch which was found to be stopped 
just at that time.” 

“Quite right. But I found by means of my 
glass that there was a dent in the case, and that 
dent told me that some one had stopped the watch 
[ 204 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
by hitting it against his knee. Against your knee, 
for example.” 

“Yes, why not?” smiled Miller although not so 
confidently as before. 

“Besides I quickly became convinced that Lange 
was not the murderer. The matter of the nicked 
pocket-knife caused me my first doubt. My next 
one was even more positive. For I happened to 
notice while I was up in the court house that Lange 
was left-handed.” 

Preben Miller started violently. 

“What an idiot I was,” he swore, “to have for- 
gotten that.” 

“Yes, you should have started the cut from the 
other side,” said Falk cynically. “Although that 
wouldn’t have helped you. The cobbler betrayed 
you anyway. Why didn’t you bribe him to keep 
silent?” 

“Because he wasn’t satisfied with the 40 kroner 
I offered him, and that was all I had at the time.” 

“What I don’t understand,” grunted Falk, “is 
why you masqueraded as the printer, Nielsen, un- 
less you ‘worked’ together with the cobbler and 
wished to be unknown to him.” 

“Do you remember the mysterious robberies 
this spring and summer. I planned them, and the 
cobbler did the work.” 

[205] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

Falk regarded him with something like wonder. 

“But — why — what — that you have imagination 
and organizing ability I know. But from that 
to—” 

“Well, the honour is mostly yours,” admitted 
Miller. 

“Mine!” Falk looked at him in astonishment. 

“Yes, you were a sort of consultant for me,” 
explained Miller. “Many’s the evening I’ve sat 
and picked plans for my famous robberies out of 
you. And it was you who gave me the idea of the 
false teeth.” 

Falk smiled bitterly. 

“Hm! Perhaps I’ve also given you the idea of 
your alias, as Nielsen, the printer?” 

“No, I got that myself. One evening Elly told 
me of her worthy family. We were both in finan- 
cial difficulties then and neither of us had moral 
scruples. She ‘imported’ me into the cobbler’s 
cellar; I had the teeth made at a specialist’s in 
Gother Street, and that and the glasses, together 
with a rather frowsy wig and a change of clothing, 
made me as you know — quite unrecognizable.” 

“And you committed the murders and robberies 
just to amuse yourself? and to give Elly Hansen 
fine clothes?” 

“I can not deny that my calendar of sins is de- 

[ 206 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
void of redeeming moments. And yet, I tell 
you,” he continued gravely, “that I love Elly. 
Not alone because she is a woman. But also be- 
cause she is the bravest and most self-sacrificing 
friend a man ever had. And I ask of you, Falk, 
do all you can to keep her out of this — Well, I 
guess that’s all. I suppose you’ve posted men 
both at the front and kitchen door?” 

Falk shook his head: 

“No, I came up here alone.” 

“Does Willing or the police know anything 
about it?” 

“No, I’m the only one — besides Elly Hansen — 
that knows your secret.” 

Miller slowly pulled out a drawer in the writ- 
ing-table and took from it a revolver. Falk looked 
at him calmly. 

“It’s loaded,” said Miller harshly, “and makes 
very little noise. I could shoot you down like a 
dog! No one would hear. I could send Will- 
ing a false telegram that you had gone away for 
a few days. And in the meantime, I could flee to 
a foreign country and hide somewhere or other.” 

He veered suddenly and said in a tired way: 

“But how would that help me? My description 
would be wired over the whole world. I would be 
only a worthless animal hunted by day and night. 
[ 207 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
And I have no sympathy at all for man-hunting 
when I am the quarry. Besides I like you — I 
have played and lost. Life is a game. I really 
ought — ” He looked at the revolver but sighed 
“No,” and handed it to Falk. Then he seized the 
telephone and asked for police headquarters. 

“This is Preben Miller, the writer, at Old 
Kingsway!” he said. “I have murdered a man 
or two, and I wish you would come and get me at 
once. No, of course it isn’t a joke! Only make 
sure the wagon is as comfortable as possible. I 
hate jolty cars — yes, Preben Miller — Old Kings- 
way.” 

He hung up. 

Falk thoughtfully weighed the pistol in his hand. 

“Do you feel no twinge of conscience?” he 
asked. 

Miller shook his head. 

“None, whatsoever. The cobbler was a scoun- 
drel. And Saabye treated me shabbily when I 
asked him to loan me money that evening. He 
could have said no. But he made fun of me into 
the bargain.” 

Falk suddenly gave him the revolver: 

“We have had so many cheery hours together,” 
he said. “I will go into the room there in the 
meantime.” 


[ 208 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 

But Preben Miller smilingly refused to do it. 

“No, one never knows what comes after. And 
a shattered cranium is so unappetizing!” 

They sat in silence for some moments. The 
noise from the street rushed by them in a queer 
fashion. Suddenly Miller turned to the writing- 
table and put a manuscript into an envelope, ad- 
dressed and stamped it. 

“Promise me to put this in the mail,” he said to 
Falk, and handed him the letter. “It is a review 
of Nissen’s latest book. It is an excellent story. 
But the fellow detests me heartily. He will weep 
tears of blood over this review, I hope.” 

Falk saw that the letter was addressed to the 
editor of the paper for which Miller wrote criti- 
cisms. He put it in his pocket and promised to 
take care of it. 

Miller’s mischievous smile had changed to a 
grimace of barely concealed melancholy: 

“If you in any way can,” and he repeated his 
earlier plea, “then keep her out of it. For you 
don’t belong to the police, and you don’t have to 
tell them about the robberies. As for me, well, 
I am not a yam spinner for nothing.” 

“I will do what I can,” said Falk consol- 
ingly. 

“And I would so much like to see her,” he said 

[ 209 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
and lowered his eyes, “before I — Do you think it 
could be arranged — alone I mean?” 

“I will speak to the District Attorney about it,” 
promised Falk. 

Miller nodded gratefully. An automobile 
stopped before the house: 

“That damn note!” he muttered. 

They both sat and listened to the steps coming 
up the stairs. They came nearer and nearer. 
Both Falk and Miller went out to open the door, 
but first Miller smoothed his hair which was rather 
untidy. 

Two detectives were there. One of them knew 
Falk. 

“I hope this isn’t a joke, Mr. Falk.” 

“No, it isn’t a joke,” and Miller opened the 
door to the living-room. 

The detectives went in behind Falk and Miller. 

“Is this Preben Miller, the writer?” the taller 
of them asked. 

Miller lit a cigarette, the last for many years. 

“Yes, I am he,” he nodded. “I murdered Mr. 
Saabye and the cobbler, Thorvald Hansen.” 

The detectives stared at him in stupefaction. 
His serenity was impressive. But Miller stretched 
his hands toward them: 

“Here are my hands. Would you be good 

[ 210 ] 


TWO DEAD MEN 
enough to put hand-cuffs on them? I adore 
the dramatic. And I look forward to the solitude 
of the prison. There I will write my life’s 
masterpiece!” 


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